It's high time the likes of the Stormers and the Proteas stopped putting down the defeats suffered at the weekend to a bad day at the office.
The way they lost was totally unacceptable and they must acknowledge that rather than offer some half-assed excuses.
Robbie Fleck’s manne were hammered 40-3 by the Bulls and the Proteas were beaten by one wicket by an inexperienced Sri Lanka team.
But really, those defeats could be seen coming from way over the horizon.
The Stormers didn’t look good in the SuperHeroes Sunday game despite scoring four tries.
Their touchdowns, while well-taken, were from unstructured play.
They won turnovers in collisions and made some clean breaks from those.
There was nothing planned about them. They were the result of pressure on the Bulls and lacked any real build-up or phase play.
And that must have been some indication to the coaches that something was wrong.
The Bulls on the other hand scored three tries and those were from much better play - and the same happened at Loftus last Saturday.
Apart from Rosko Specman’s opening try, they ran in three brilliant scores from what were basically training ground moves.
The Stormers hardly created any momentum with their play and they got exposed.
The Proteas, meanwhile, took Sri Lanka for easy prey and ended up eating grass.
I pointed out last week how the South Africans failed to prepare for the match and they paid for it in the first innings.
Having been caught out by the Lankans’ rookie attack, the top-order hardly made amends in the second innings.
Team selection was just as bad, with spinner Keshav Maharaj coming in at the expense of a No.7 batsman and SA came up short on both totals.
These problems were there for all to see. Only arrogance or ignorance could explain what the coaches were thinking.
And that sort of thinking has no place in top-level sport.