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Perth - Despite their loss against the Reds, the Sharks remain in a healthy third position on the log, and with six home matches awaiting them on their return to Durban, there are worse places the team could be right now.
Assistant coach Grant Bashford, on Tuesday admitted that while the team are hurting, they haven’t become a poor team overnight and they are determined to put the result behind them, learn from it and move on to the next challenge which is playing the Force in Perth Saturday.
“Absolutely, we aren’t panicking even though it was a game we would have liked to collect at least four points from,” he explained to the Sharks' website. “I think we should also give them some credit, they played exceptionally well and took their opportunities. I think we felt, even with 10 minutes to go, we could still win, maybe there’s a lesson in that – it doesn’t matter who you play against, you have to come out and play from the start and not think that it is just going to happen later on, because we ran out of time, and that’s ultimately where I think we paid the price.
With The Sharks having lost another player to injury – Ruan Pienaar – Bashford admits it hasn’t helped matters.
“This tournament is unrelenting with just one break in fourteen weeks and picking up three injuries in three weeks makes it especially tough on us because we’re on tour.
“If you look at the players we have lost – and obviously you don’t want to lose anyone – but a Jean Deysel and a flyhalf in Ruan Pienaar, it’s difficult to replace them, and then with a guy like Alistair Hargreaves, he was really starting to get momentum and do a lot of work off the bench for us, it’s very sad to have lost them, especially the extent of the injuries.
“Alistair potentially has to have an operation, Jean is out for six weeks and we’re still waiting to find out how long Ruan’s going to be out, but as a door closes on somebody, an opportunity arises for someone else, and that’s the way we are looking at it, we have to.
“It’s very sad for Ruan, but we are confident Francois Steyn can do a very good job for us at 10.” The Sharks had a special visitor on Monday - Andrew Johns spent the day with the team, a welcome return for the league legend who spent a week with them during the pre-season.
“There was always going to be an opportunity to get him back here to spend a session with us, and I think with the injury to Pienaar, it’s come at a good time with him being a first-receiver and decision-maker having spent time with Steyn and Riaan Swanepoel, that was great. It’s really good to have a different voice out there at this time of the campaign and I think all in all, he’s a really good bloke and part of the family now, he fitted in like he’s always been a part of the team, and with a fresh set of ideas.”
While Bashford admits that having a different perspective on things is something the Sharks will always embrace, the focal point is not so much on changing anything drastically insofar as there is a desire to reach their potential.
“There is always new stuff to bring in,” he says, “but I think the key is that we haven’t become a bad rugby team overnight. We’ve made mistakes, our accuracy let us down and we never got anything going, and maybe it was a bit about attitude – we haven’t got to the bottom of it yet.
“But there are no panic stations, we don’t have to re-invent the wheel, it’s just about getting the basics right.”
