Sharks coach John Plumtree has admitted that his team are all but gone as far as the Super Rugby play offs are concerned this season.
Plumtree's Sharks were beaten 32-17 at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Friday by the Reds and have now lost their last five matches.
It took the Reds just over half an hour to score the bonus point for four tries and Plumtree described his team's performance in the first half as "terrible".
The Sharks fought their way back into the match in the second half and scored two tries but Plumtree could find few positives to take from the game.
"You can't give a side like the Reds that type of possession from unstructured defence," Plumtree told Sportal.
"They were just deadly from turnover ball.
"I thought the more of that they got, the more confident they got, and we couldn't help ourselves, we just kept on giving it to them.
"So it was a terrible performance in that first half."
Plumtree was happy that his team showed character in the second half but admitted the first half cost them the match.
"When we brought some pressure and we made them do some work in defence we started clawing our way back into the game," Plumtree said.
"That was pleasing, but it was obviously too much of a deficit at half-time to mount any real challenge in the end."
Coach Plumtree said that certain Sharks players had let themselves down with the performance.
"There's some individuals there that just let themselves down big time," he said.
"This week we talked about how important our defence would be but there's one or two players out there that are just out of form.
"There's some things that we can change, but there's some things we can't change because of the situation we've got with injuries, so we just have to keep boxing on."
Looking ahead at the Sharks chances of reaching the play offs in July Plumtree admitted it was over for his team.
"I think we're dead now," he said.
"It's just been a terrible season for us."
