Sharks skipper John Smit was left stumped after seeing his side slump to their fifth straight Super 14 defeat.

The South African outfit, hotly-tipped to make at least the semi-finals before the competition began, were undone by two close-range tries from ACT Brumbies loosehead prop Ben Alexander as the Australians stole the points with a 24-22 victory.

And Springboks captain Smit said: “That’s hard to lose like this. We’ve had five games now and lost four like this.

“We did enough to win the game but gave away too many easy penalties in their 22 when we had them on the rack and let them get out of the danger zone.”

England fly-half Andy Goode had given the South Africans a 16-13 half-time lead with a penalty just before the break, despite Alexander scoring his first try.

But Alexander drove across the line again in the second half and, despite the Sharks dominating possession they couldn’t get over the line.

And Brumbies captain Stephen Hoiles said: “I don’t think it was a very good game, we will take the win but we need to start improving and playing some good footy. We have got a fair bit of improvement in us.”

The Brumbies are now third in the table, two points behind leaders Crusaders.

Melbourne Storm got the defence of their NRL title off to a winning, if unspectacular, start with a 14-10 win at the Cronulla Sharks.

Tries from Greg Inglis and former Shark Luke MacDougall were enough to see off Sharks.

And, despite a less than convincing display, Storm coach Craig Bellamy was more than happy to get the points on the board.
He said: “It certainly wasn’t a great spectacle but we did what we needed to do and we got the points.

“Our attack in the first half was particularly poor and it’s something that we'll need to work on.”

Sharks were left to bemoan skipper Trent Barrett’s sinbinning and coach Ricky Stuart said: “It cost us the game in the end.
“They scored off the next set down the edge where Trent defends.”

Penrith Panthers are off and running for the season after beating the Canberra Raiders 34-16 while the Newcastle Knights saw off Canterbury Bulldogs 20-16.