Plumtree Laments Poor Sharks Skills Against Zebre And Calls For Major Improvement Against Leinster

John Plumtree was a dissatisfied coach on Saturday evening after his team had repeatedly shot themselves in the foot to labour to a 35-34 defeat of Zebre, a team in 15th position on the United Rugby Championship table.

Plumtree warned his charges all week that Zebre would not be pushovers after winning five games this season but he said it was poor skills rather than lack of effort that almost caused a monumental upset in Durban.

It is going to take a while to digest this performance, the exasperated Plumtree said.

It just shows you that, no matter who you are playing against, if your skill sets are poor and you cant build pressure with the ball, and you dont play in the right areas, and your kicking is not good, and you are not winning the aerial battle, you are in for a long day.

Zebre have some exceptional attacking players, especially their fullback Geronimo Prisciantelli and they punished us when we gave them ball in unbroken play.