The Ospreys left Cork empty handed on Saturday night after defeat to Munster – here’s the post match reaction.
Talking to the media straight after the game at Irish Independent Park, Steve Tandy said that it had been an improved performance on last week but once again the Ospreys had been the architects of their own downfall.
“It was a little bit better than last week but we made it too easy for Munster” he said.
“Some of the exits gave them easy possession and in fairness, when you are up against a team like Munster they will take the opportunity if you give it to them.
“The intent and the effort is there, execution not so much. We made it a little bit easy for Munster, we created our own pressure not exiting properly, putting ourselves on the back foot. I thought tactically some of the stuff we did was pretty decent. The application was there but we need to be more clinical in what we do.”
As the Ospreys suffered an eighth Guinness PRO14 defeat of the season it was put to Tandy that with a the team low on confidence and struggling for form and momentum that they were almost “losing because they are losing” in a vicious cycle of form and results.
“It is tough” he agreed.
“We started well enough, had got to midway through the first half and it was only 3-0, we had something to build on and were enjoying an excellent spell of possession where we were starting to ask questions of Munster and imposing ourselves on the game.
“A moment of indiscipline when we were on the front foot changed all that, we were down to 14 men, we made a couple of mistakes and I thought there were a couple of rough calls in and around our 22, whether something is a forward pass, and built pressure on ourselves.
“Before we know it is 17-0 and we are chasing the game with the inevitable consequences but in fairness to the boys they stuck at. It would have been easy to throw the towel in but they battled on. That’s the way it is in sport when things are not going your way, things seems to build up against you.
“It’s bitterly disappointing, yes we lost, but the intent, the effort and endeavour is still there within this group. We’ve got to keep working hard. It’s tough all round for us. It’s a confidence thing. We’ve come out with good application, I thought we were faster, more abrasive at the breakdown and tackle area and we had more physicality tonight but we weren’t ruthless enough in our application.”
