Van Zyl lifts lid on Sharks’ woes

http://www.iol.co.za/sport/van-zyl-lifts-lid-on-sharks-woes-2035963

The appointment of John Smit was pathetic- and this has been proven. He has no business experience and looks like he has single handily run the Sharks into the ground.
The moral of the younger players has not been good- with the continual stop gap solutions of past it or never been players. Think no further than Fatt Stevens walking into the squad even though he was the most unfit player ever to play Super rugby.

Instead of trying to build a culture developing players- the Sharks opted for every bargain basement option available. The result was that player turn over was too high- and costs escalated. 

 Smit was a top player and a disaster in management - clueless as hey come.  His treatment of Plumtree was pathetic and opened up a serious of rugby disasters by appointing first Dr Venter and then Jake White as head coaches.   Nobody knows what happened to the Venter saga - but what w e know is that Jake White was fired and succeeded by Gold.  Smit brought in a number of players from NH Club sides whose contracts were not renewed and who were his mates.   Bad news for the Sharks that one. 

 Had a very interesting convo with Keegan Daniel recently.He was scathing in his assessment on both white and Smit.White sulked when he didn't get his way and had his favourites and made the rest feel like out siders Smit thought he was a legend and needed to be respected before he earned it.
So interesting to see these developments

 Sounds true to form Chips. 

Plumtree was in a contract when he was fired- as was Jake White. 
The Sharks have been paying out massive sums to fired coaches- fort the remaining contract duration. 
Plumtree successfully took them to court and made them pay out a four-year deal if I recall. He apparently had verbal confirmation which proved legally binding before Spit sold him down the river. The Sharks tried to deny the contract existed- but in the 4 years had to be payed out for nothing
Gary Gold is close to getting fired as well- so all is not great in Sharks territory. 

 Chippo - what Daneel said was in the media in the past.  White's main favourite was Steyn - who was a bad case scenario at both center and flyhalf.     

 Very rarely would a sports franchise flip from a healthy profit making business in van Zyl's last year.....to a loss making basket case in Smits's first year. 

 They had to pay out Plumtree and cater for the contracting of Smit's pals - enough to send any franchise into financial decay.   White did much to destroy attendance of rugby games in Durban - another money source gone.   Add the things up and the Sharks would be in financial trouble to say the least.     

One off payments are separate considerations from ongoing cash flow and normal accounting practice would have accrued Plumtree's entire payoff in the year before Jake took over.

 The Plumtree issue may be a one term pay-off - but it still represents a double cost in expenditure terms.   That was the first year under Smit - so that may have affected the one financial year ie 2013 - but it still was a cash flow deficiency.  In the case of White his pay would have been higher than in previous years - another negative - and then there was the Smit pals - like Wentzel, Botha, Fat Fransie and Fatter Stevens - which were not one-off payments and would have gobbled up up to R10 - 12 million in each of 2014 and 2015.    Add that lot to the total and the picture becomes very grim.   These costs were basically halved in 2016, but it still means the above cost an approximate additional costs incurred by Smit of more or less R14 - 18 million over the last three years - which could be regarded as fruitless expenditure on useless players.