EP stats frighten Spencer
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The EP Kings stats do not make for happy reading according to coach Carlos Spencer who is primarily concerned with the poor attack to defence ratio.
The Eastern Province Kings find themselves rooted to the foot of the Currie Cup table with a single losing bonus point and Spencer believes it has to do with the rate at which the Kings get turned over.
"That has been one of my main concerns over the past few weeks – we have been turning the ball over too easily," Spencer said ahead of his teams massive clash against the table-topping Western Province.
"I had a look at our stats in the week and it is quite frightening, seeing how few phases we are getting through before turning over the ball."
For Spencer that means his team's ball retention is poor on attack and the ability to build up phases is something that is eluding them.
This has led to the Kings becoming a team that is forced to revert to a defensive game plan more often than not.
"Our biggest problem is that we are not putting enough pressure on the defence," Spencer continued.
"We are not causing them to make enough tackles and the opposition are doing that exact thing to us [forcing EP to make all the tackles].
"We have to make 250 tackles a game and we are only carrying the ball like 75 or 80 times, and that is not enough.
Spencer is clearly looking for an improvement from his team, especially in attack, but his ask is not a minor one.
"I would like to think we can carry the ball at least 150 times and at the moment we are not even close to that," Spencer said.
The coach believes that if his team can work harder at the breakdown to secure possession and prevent turn over in attack then their attacking chances will have a stronger foundation to build upon.
"We are turning over too much ball, so hopefully we can ply a little more pressure on the defence and hold on to that ball and create phases to put pressure on the defence," he concluded
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