John Bishop

Durban - This time the Sharks were left with no one but themselves to blame after allowing another Super 14 win to slip through over-anxious fingers in Canberra on Saturday.

The current crop of Sharks have refined the art of losing close games, this time going down 24-22 to the Brumbies for their fifth successive defeat.

Again, it could not have been closer and it was their fourth loss this season by less than seven points.

This time it was a late Matt Giteau penalty which settled their fate and it was a tough, marginal call with Ryan Kankowski, running off the back of a lineout as the Brumbies threw in quickly, ruled off-side.

Still, the Sharks had their chances again in the closing minutes until two blatant knock-ons, deep in Brumbies’ territory, took the game away.

On such small margins are contests decided but the Sharks are doing little to create their own luck while basic errors are spoiling much of their hard work.

Again, just as they did against the Waratahs in Sydney, they were able to make their highly-regarded opponents, playing at home, look decidedly ordinary and it was a game they should have won.

They competed strongly up front, they  clattered into tackles and they contained the fancied Brumbies backs for long periods.  But they are unable to sustain the pressure, create the openings and add those critical finishing, winning touches.

The Sharks, with justification, could blame referee Paul Marks for their loss to the Waratahs last weekend after several contentious decisions and they were dismayed to find that the Australian, dumped from the refereeing panel, pop up as an assistant referee in Canberra.

He again made a couple of telling calls but the Sharks made too many basic errors of their own – passing and handling badly, kicking the ball directly into touch and losing possession at the breakdown – to concern themselves with errant  match officials.

Captain John Smit is battling to explain away these close defeats – and he is not alone.

“We did enough to win this game but, in the end, it was our own fault that we lost,” he remarked in largely repeating what he said after the Sharks went down by a couple of points to the Chiefs, the Cheetahs and the Waratahs.

“We gave the Brumbies too many penalties which was upsetting because we thought we had them on the rack.  This enabled them to get out of the danger zone far too often.

“Now we are desperate for a win to change all this but we are running out of games. We have to make it happen next week (against the Highlanders).”

The Sharks now travel back across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand where they conclude their nightmare tour against  the Highlanders and the Hurricanes over the next fortnight.

The scrum again suffered when Smit was on the tighthead though, for the rest, the forwards did enough to win this game.

But the overall continuity, the cohesion between backs and forwards which are features of the rugby being played by the successful Bulls and Stormers, is a faded memory and the Sharks are unable to  keep the ball, and play with it,  for sustained periods.

The result is that the Sharks, in a season where they hoped to play an all-out attacking game, have lost the sharp edge, the ability they once had to create and run in tries.

Indeed, they have scored just four tries in five outings. A talented team, crowded with internationals, has gone missing in action.