This is superb rugby writing by my mate Mike Greenaway

One does not have to be an alarmist to recognise that the Sharks’ Super Rugby title hopes have been exposed as increasingly threadbare over the last fortnight following startlingly poor performances at home against the Cheetahs and the Highlanders.

The Durbanites got out of jail against a Cheetahs team equally bereft of inspiration and ambition on the day, but a hungry Highlanders team ripped through the Sharks’ inadequacies and scored four tries to zip to revive their hopes in the NZ Conference while raising questions about the validity of the Sharks’ position at the top of the overall Conference.

The Sharks are one point ahead of a Brumbies team that thrashed the defending champion Chiefs at the weekend in a game of superior quality.

And now the Sharks must tour … It has been said by many a luminary that teams cannot be judged until everybody has toured, but the momentum the Sharks were engendering in the first half of the competition suggested that they might be partially exempt from this sage comment. Many felt that the mighty head of steam built up the Sharks could not be significantly dissipated, whether they still had to tour or not, but the manner in which they have capitulated in their last two games is more indicative of a team in crisis than of one that topped the log at the half way stage.

The Sharks have had their injury problems, to be fair, and on the eve of the match against the Highlanders they lost a massive chunk of brute force in Bismarck du Plessis and Jean Deysel, but that should not have emasculated the pack in the way it did.

The pack was a ghost of the seething force that smashed all before them in paving the Sharks’ way to an 11-point lead at the top of the local Conference.

Bismarck is a battleship on his own, and Deysel is a formidable destroyer that could not make the fleet that sailed at the start of the campign.

The loss of this heavy armament was keenly felt, obviously, but instead of the good ship merely listing a little before righting itself, it sank without trace.

And this was against a Highlanders’ forward combination that came to Kings Park with no reputation – until now. There are almost no household names in their pack and they will now cheerily consider themselves giant-slayers.

This was the ideal opportunity for deposed captain Keegan Daniel to make a statement. We know that the saloon at Kings Park no longer had room for both him and Bismarck after a rumoured fall-out last year, and Daniel has subsequently been a bit-part player this year and announced he is going the Japanese route later this year. But with Bismarck sidelined, what better opportunity for Daniel to state his case by pulling the troops together in adversity, leading the charge on the enemy trenches and restoring order. All was falling apart around him and Daniel should have kept his head and shown the way, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling.

It did not happen, and it would have been a sentimental boon for the former captain had he saved the situation, but there was too much wrong for one man to have fixed it on the hoof.

And in any case, where were Springboks in Willem Alberts and Bismarck’s big boet, Jannie? There should have been rallying cries from them, not Daniel alone.

Before the match, White had warned that his front-line troops were showing signs of battle fatigue, and he would now say this has proved to be the case, but this does not hold water when you bear in mind that the Sharks have already had two byes in their nine games to date.

The inescapable truth is that the senior Sharks forwards did not pitch up for the battle, and that made it all the more difficult for a constantly changing backline to overcome injury and achieve cohesion.

It is true enough that 20-year-old Tim Swiel is desperately treading water in the heavy seas of Super Rugby, but the flyhalf did not have many flotation devices tossed his way by the likes of old salts such as Frans Steyn and JP Pietersen.

The afore-mentioned Springboks should have exuded inspiration rather than frustration.

It is distressing indeed for the Sharks that they begin their tour with almost no momentum in terms of how they want to play the game. Having the points in the bank is good and well, but it is disconcerting that you are worrying about how you are going to score your next try when the green grass of home could not be further away.

This week it was Melbourne, then it will be the vengeful howls of the Canberra faithful for “traitor” Jake White before the merciless task of beating the Crusaders in Christchurch. The Sharks finish off against the unpredictable Blues in Auckland, by which time the vengeful Stormers at Kings Park on May 31 could be relatively appetizing.by Mike Greenaway