“The only people who can put it right is ourselves” says Tandy as the Ospreys prepare to depart Italy for South Africa ahead of Cheetahs clash in Bloemfontein on Friday.
The Ospreys’ losing run continued last night as they slumped to a 16-6 defeat in Treviso, leaving the region with just one win from four Guinness PRO14 games so far this season.
Reflecting on the game, Head Coach, Steve Tandy, was left ruing missed opportunities as the Ospreys again failed to turn prolonged spells of possession and territory into points.
“It’s a feeling of bitter disappointment” he said.
“There was a high error count, loads of detail you can throw at it but, ultimately, it’s another defeat and that’s disappointing for us.
“I don’t think it was about application, or a lack of effort. Ultimately we had enough possession, enough opportunities in the second half that we didn’t take. We made it difficult for ourselves and as a result we don’t get anything from the game.”
Next up is a long haul to Bloemfontein, departing from Venice Marco Polo Airport on Saturday afternoon, for the region’s first ever game in South Africa. They will come up against a Cheetahs team that has picked up bonus point wins on the last two weekends, in home games against Zebre and, last night, Leinster.
Tandy said the road trip, and the challenge of turning around current form, will be a test he believes the group can respond to.
“It’s another game. We are spending some time together, which will be a good thing but ultimately we’ve got to start winning games pretty quickly. It is the truest test of the word ‘character’ for a group and I’m sure those boys in there will come through.
“As coaches we’ll reflect on how we are playing. I thought we were a little bit lateral, no real cutting edge in some of the things we were doing, but we still had enough opportunities to get a result here.”
Tandy remained positive in the face of questioning about three straight losses.
“I don’t think it’s a crisis” he said.
“Probably for you guys in the media, you’ll see it as a crisis, but we are trying to adapt a few things around our game, we feel we want to evolve around more width to our play. It isn’t quite where we need it to be yet.
“It’s bitterly disappointing and from the outside probably everybody thinks there’s a pretty low ebb around the dressing room, but the only people who can put it right is ourselves.
“We’ve got to perform and we need to perform pretty quickly. We are going to a tough place this week and they are going to be confident after their win against Leinster. Looking at their games we know they are going to play football. It’ll probably be end to end, there’ll be a lot of opportunities, but as we’ve shown tonight, if we get opportunities we need to take them.
