Frustrated Tandy disappointed by errors

Ospreys were the architects of their own downfall said Head Coach Steve Tandy after Friday night’s defeat to Edinburgh.

Reflecting on a disappointing night at Watsonians RFC’s Myreside ground, Tandy agreed that the performance on the night hadn’t been good enough.

“We are pretty frustrated” said Tandy.

“If I’m honest, I’m disappointed. We coughed up the ball far too many times, too many basic errors, and the minute we got into opposition territory, get some field position, we spooned the ball and coughed it up. It’s a bitterly disappointing night for us.

“I think we played some good stuff in the first half, had a couple of opportunities, and at this level when you come away from home you need to take those. You can’t expect to win games when you stack up as many errors as we did tonight. It’s as simple as that.

“Clearly the set piece is an area we’ve got to keep working on but tonight was about more than just that. There were basic turnovers, we kicked a couple of balls dead off the park, knocks ons, poor offloads. The errors all stacked up and meant we were never going to win. If there was any error to be made tonight, we made it, and we made too many of them. There a few issues that we have to get sorted, and get sorted quickly.

“This is a tough block for us but it’s something that we were pretty excited about coming into it. I think that makes this harder to take, as we are bitterly disappointed about the performance. 

“With the injuries we’ve got, and the international call-ups, it does ask more of our young kids, and on the whole we are pretty pleased with them. It’s just tonight we weren’t good enough.

“It’s going to be another tough encounter next week, and the reality is that if we play like this against Glasgow we’ll find ourselves on the end of a pretty harsh scoreline. We’ve already highlighted how important this period of the season is for us, and these boys have to take responsibility. It’s not just about the youngsters, there has to be the guidance from the experienced ones, who’ve been there and done it, to help steer them through. That’s important for us at the moment.

“We’ll review the game over the next 48 hours, take a good look at the analysis, and then on Monday morning we’ll get back on the horse and look how we can work our way through this.”