After today's game Bernard Jackman conceded that Benetton deserved their fifth straight victory in the competition as he rued his own team's inaccuracies. Zane Kirchner starting again at ten had an afternoon to forget as three conversions and a penalty were crucially missed in a tight contest.
"To win tight games you have to dig a little bit deeper, which can come from experience and confidence. Benetton have won five in a row now so they were able to manage the last few minutes better than us.
"We want to become a team that know how to close out those tight games. We spoke about how dangerous they are and for us in Wales the litmus test is beating the Scarlets as they did last week so there was no complacency, Benetton have just got a lot better.
"We’re more competitive now, but the next step now is to start winning the tight games. We’ve had Newcastle here, Ulster, Glasgow and today where the game was in the balance and we need to be more clinical in the key moments. Benetton deserved the win in the end because they managed the game better. They pinned us back in our own half and took their scores where as we were a little bit wasteful.
"The first step was to stop conceding 30-35 points and we seem to have fixed that but we want to be winning and when we review that game later it will be an opportunity lost.
"Nothing against Benetton they are a much improved side, but to start like we did and let them back into the game and not capitalise on some early possession and territory dominance at the start of the second half we‘ve only got ourselves to blame.
"We need our half backs to make sure we are playing in the right areas and at the right tempo. I thought tonight we slowed the game down when we should have played quick and then played quick when we should have been slowing it down, but that’s a bit of inexperience.
"What youth gives you is massive enthusiasm, and we saw Rio Dyer make his Pro14 debut.>Unfortunately we didn’t get him in space to give him a chance ball in hand as that;s where he is exciting and we had Connor Edwards getting good game time and Dan Babos is getting time too, so those players will learn from the experience they are getting in Pro14 games home and away, but we need to accelerate their learning so they can play like they are experienced
"We didn’t have a fit goal kicker to start the game. Arwel Robson only passed his return to play Thursday so hasn’t played since January when he was injured against Scarlets, but since Gavin pulled a muscle on Monday it forced our hand. We’re hopeful Gavin can be fit to play next Friday at Ebbw Vale, it will be him or Arwel to start.
"We see Zane as someone who can fill in at ten when we don’t have other options, our two front line tens are Gavin and Arwel and then Dorian and Angus are a little bit behind, but Dorian has been kicking well for Ebbw Vale so he will obviously come into the picture as well
"It would have been hard for Arwel to come straight into the game and start having not had any rugby for six weeks but we hope he will be able to start against Edinburgh or the Southern Kings.
"Tyler was named to start, but on Wednesday in training he went up for a high ball, came down and felt a crack, so the scan looks like there’s a hairline fracture in his foot so he’s going to see a specialist on Monday but he’s definitely not available Friday night.
"It’s tough on him as he’s come back after injury and trained hard and we were looking forward to having him for the last six or seven games as he was very good at the start of the year so it’s unfortunate for him.
"The results and performance of every game are important but we need to be better and on Friday night it’s an opportunity to take the game in to the region and play better than we did today."
