One of the oldest truisms of rugby is that a sound defence will ultimately win you more matches than you lose, despite what you can do on attack.
There is no better illustration of this than two of the teams that have been best-loved over the 20 years of Super Rugby for their brilliant attacking play, the Hurricanes and the Cheetahs, neither of whom have come close to winning the title because they always leak more tries than they score.
Well, this season that has changed for the Wellington-based team, with the Hurricanes having at last sorted out their defensive system under former Sharks coach John Plumtree, while the Sharks have gone in the opposite direction after having been the best team on defence last year under Jake White.
Now they are the worst tacklers in the competition, and this goes some way to explaining why they are in the nether regions of the competition.
On average per game, the Sharks have missed more tackles than any other team after 12 rounds of the competition – 22.5% of tackles attempted are not effective.
Statistically, the Chiefs have the best defence in Super Rugby, and the Lions are not far behind them.
The statistics on individual Sharks players reveal a great deal.
Probably the best defender for the Sharks this year has been Marcell Coetzee, who has also played the most minutes – 787 – and has made 100 tackles while missing just 10.
Veteran lock Mouritz Botha is at the other end of the scale, having missed 24 tackles for the 68 he has made. Let’s be fair to the 33-year-old, he is not the front-line of defence.
Perhaps of more concern is inside centre Andre Esterhuizen, who has missed 18 tackles for the 55 he has made in 463 minutes of game time.
The Sharks’ midfield is where the opposition are making the clean line-breaks.
And the coaching staff would be concerned that fullback Odwa Ndungane has missed 15 tackles, having made just 25, in 719 minutes of game time.
A fullback missing 15 tackles?
TEAMS OVERALL
*Tackles Missed Success %
Chiefs 104.3 13.1 89
Bulls 118.5 16.5 88
Hurricanes 135.8 18.2 88
Lions 111.3 15.3 88
Blues 97.7 14.3 87
Brumbies 106.3 16.5 87
Rebels 115 15.3 87
Reds 110.3 17 87
Cheetahs 129.4 22.1 85
Crusaders 106.9 19.4 85
Highlanders 122 21.1 85
Stormers 105.8 18.9 85
Waratahs 99.5 18.2 85
Force 87.5 18.5 83
Sharks 108.4 22.5 83
* average tackles made per game - The Mercury