Alun Wyn Jones urged the Ospreys to bounce back strongly after the disappointment of defeat against London Irish confirmed his team's exit from this season's Heineken Cup.
A clearly emotional skipper spoke passionately at the post-match press conference, when he pinpointed the events of the last 10 minutes as where the game finally got away from the Ospreys. He explained:
“It was only the final five minutes when that penalty went over that I felt the game had got away from us. That was the point of no return. Every time we had the ball and had phases we were threatening.
“It would have been interesting if we’d kept the ball in the scrum after their yellow. I thought Craig Mitchell did exceptionally well coming on, stepping into Adam’s big shoes, and had we kept it in that scrum it would have made for an interesting last 10 minutes, but our decision making at key times let us down. It’s becoming a bit of a bullshit trend for us.
“I think there was the impression that an overlap was on. The front five, we felt we had the ascendancy in the scrum, and we did, it was going forward. I think because it stopped moving, the boys took the overlap option. Rightly so, if we’d finished it I wouldn’t be saying anything. It’s not a blame culture, there’s no one to blame, it’s just that sometimes we need a bit more patience in the red zone.
“Win or lose, those fans that travelled today, they support us fully everywhere. Hopefully there’s going to be a lot of people at the Liberty next weekend and going forward. They were brilliant again today, as always, we are proud to be able to represent them, and it’s important that we show that on the pitch, next week and beyond.
“We are fifth in the Magners, we are still in the hunt in there, we’ve got to defend our title to make sure they stay with us. It’s frustrating, very frustrating. It’s not a good feeling, the changing room is very down at the moment but we need to tap into that, to make sure we don’t feel that way again.”