Ospreys coach Allen Clarke has claimed the threat to the region’s survival is undermining his team.
Clarke watched his side fall apart on Saturday – thrashed 46-5 at Connacht, the Irish province least renowned for dishing out any thrashings.
It is one thing to leak six tries against Leinster or Munster, but quite another to do so against Connacht and Clarke believes leaked plans to kill off his region – plans that he himself made public a week before – are now taking their toll.
“A lot of things came to a head today and it was a hugely disappointing performance from us,” said the former Ireland hooker.
Asked how much off-field events over the last week affected his team’s performance, he added: “It certainly felt like that. Genuinely, I don’t know how much weight we can put on that, or how you measure it.
“It’s very easy for us to stand here and hide behind it but, ultimately, today we were beaten in all facets of the game outside of the scrum.
“Early on, systems-wise defensively, we conceded tries we haven’t been conceding and that gave Connacht tremendous impetus in conditions that were difficult for us. That left us chasing the game.
“You look at the end of the first half, we are an intercept away from going in to score and cut the lead to 15. We end up back on our line defending, Keelan Giles gets yellow carded and that’s a huge blow.
“With that wind, and the right approach, a 15-point game at half-time is there for you, but I think that blow hurt us and we couldn’t recover from it when we came back out. We lacked that composure to do what we needed to.
“It hurts us badly to not have any internationals back, and you could see the impact that their four returning Ireland players made.”
As the Six Nations resumes this weekend, the Ospreys do not now have a game for three weeks – itself an illustration of the shambolic structure of the season.
It means that while they cannot suffer any more drubbings, they must stew on this defeat until March 23 when they play the Dragons at the Liberty Stadium.
At least that game should have some sort of edge to it as both teams appear unsure of their futures under the botched and then abandoned planning of the WRU’s Project Reset.
Perhaps the Union could market the game as a winner-takes-all survival special – with the victors able to keep their identity and location and the losers ordered to fold or re-locate to Colwyn Bay.
Clarke added: “There are four games to play and we have to look at salvaging a bit of pride after today, whatever happens elsewhere, and we must keep fighting as a collective.
“This Connacht team were well beaten in Glasgow last week and they’ve responded. That shows what’s possible.
