Hanno Dirksen believes the Ospreys will bounce back from Friday’s opening pre-season defeat stronger as they build up to the opening PRO12 game of the new campaign, against Treviso at the Liberty
Speaking after the Worcester game the 23-year old wing, who has scored 15 tries for the region, said that the message for inside and outside the changing room was ‘“don’t panic” despite the obvious disappointment.
“Pre-season is always a difficult time” said Dirksen.
“it’s always strange in terms of the games as teams approach them differently, with different intentions and outcomes. We were obviously a bit rusty at times out there, and we let them into the game too softly, really easy. There were mistakes made, we can’t hide away from that, but it’s important that we use this as a starting point for the new season and build on it from here.
“We always knew that this was part of a bigger picture, with Tuesday against the clubs, Saracens next week, and then another week of reviewing and putting things right after that before we play Treviso at home in the Liberty. That doesn’t mean we are content to lose. It wasn’t the outcome that we wanted, we all know that.
“We’ve got to take the positives as well though, we can’t beat ourselves up about it too much. We had the chances to be in front at half time and didn’t take them and then let Worcester get away from us at the start of the second half which is disappointing.
“We’ve got to come together and relax when it’s not going our way, and not panic, go through the phases and show what we can do in attack. Don’t panic, I think that’s something we all need to remember this week, on and off the pitch.
“We didn’t stay calm at key points today, we knocked the ball on, turned it over or got penalised, and that makes it hard to get your patterns going. Individually there were some good performances, some combinations worked well, but we weren’t able to make the most of that.
“We’ve got to take this for what it is and then move on. We don’t want to build the defeat up into anything it isn’t. We are working hard to prepare for the new season and although the outcome was disappointing we all know what needs to be done between this and Treviso.”
ENDS