Ospreys head coach Steve Tandy has admitted he was embarrassed by their defeat to Treviso and branded it one of the worst during his five years in charge.
The region – who face Stade Francais next week in the European Challenge Cup quarter-final – went down to a shock 13-5 defeat in Italy on Saturday night to lose ground on the top two in the Guinness Pro12.
Tandy’s side were comfortable 64-10 winners in the corresponding fixture in Swansea, but fortunes were dramatically reversed at the Stadio Monigo.
A five-point return would have moved them above Munster into second place, and one point behind leaders Leinster, but a Keelan Giles try was their only score.
“We are pretty embarrassed with that showing,” confessed Tandy.
“In five years of coaching the Ospreys there’s not been many nights like this.
“We were beaten in all facets of the game tonight. At set-piece, physically, they dominated us. Our decision making and execution was poor, we had line breaks but we coughed the ball up.
“Credit to Treviso, they were outstanding whereas we, I thought, were disastrous for large parts, making things really difficult for ourselves. Towards the back end we lost all sense of composure, running in to touch, throwing loose balls around, not winning set piece, everything we’ve worked on throughout the season. What we saw tonight was everything we haven’t done.”
The defeat was only a second loss in the last 10 Pro12 games for the Ospreys and they remain in third place in the table.
But their failure to pick up a bonus point means they are now six points behind leaders Leinster and four adrift of second-placed Munster.
Tandy added: “It’s been a real kick in the guts for us. The only good thing is that the only people who can put it right is us. It’s a disaster for us tonight but we’ve got Stade at the Principality Stadium next week, which is huge for us, and we’ve got to get back to winning ways quickly.
“It’s knock out rugby and there’ll be no second chance at this. We’ve got to get it right on the night, but we’re excited about it.
“There’ll be changes for next week. That was always the plan. We’ll look at our working week, we’ll look at ourselves, as a group. It is a different competition but it would have been nice going into it with a bit of momentum and a positive vibe.”
Tandy insisted the performance and defeat wasn’t down to complacency. Rather, he insisted, it was down to a lack of attention to detail.
“Definitely not. They are a physical team and we’ve come unstuck here in the past so we knew how tough it could be here. In fairness to our boys, the training week has been spot on, there were no signs of anybody looking too far ahead.
“We spoke before coming out here that we didn’t to give Treviso anything to feed off but we haven’t controlled the field, we’ve let them keep coming at us and we haven’t taken our opportunities. Ultimately, Treviso deserve everything they got tonight as do we.
“It’s pretty difficult to make tactical changes when you’re not winning set piece, you’re knocking the ball on and you’re not building any phases. I don’t think we barred up physically in the first half in and around our defensive sets. There were a couple of attacks where they started off on or around the halfway line, which set the tone.
“Tactically we could have looked at one or two things but, ultimately, cough up the ball like we did, surrender ground and fail to get the basics right and you are looking at a long night and that’s what we had. It wasn’t good enough by any measure and there’s been some hard words in the changing room.”
