Matabele
Journey Man
Fox Sports are running an off-season report on each club at the moment. I caught the back-end of the Sharks one and was struck by a few things.
Stuart was quite open about the fact he is giving them a relatively light off season so they could go the distance in the reguar season. I'm no psychologist but I personally thought it questionable that there is a need to put people in cotton wool because of psychosematic concerns that the season is "so hard".
The other thing that struck me is that for 5 months the Sharks have been trotting out like a mantra the fact they lost so many close games in 2007 and they are smokies to win a few of those and storm the competition in 2008. Stuart and many of the players made mention of it and I couldn't help but wonder if they somehow think everything is going to fall into place for them.
Put the two together and I question whether they'll have the fitness base and mental toughness to do much in 2008. I've quietly struck them off the list of potential top 8 candidates.
Stuart was quite open about the fact he is giving them a relatively light off season so they could go the distance in the reguar season. I'm no psychologist but I personally thought it questionable that there is a need to put people in cotton wool because of psychosematic concerns that the season is "so hard".
The other thing that struck me is that for 5 months the Sharks have been trotting out like a mantra the fact they lost so many close games in 2007 and they are smokies to win a few of those and storm the competition in 2008. Stuart and many of the players made mention of it and I couldn't help but wonder if they somehow think everything is going to fall into place for them.
Put the two together and I question whether they'll have the fitness base and mental toughness to do much in 2008. I've quietly struck them off the list of potential top 8 candidates.