VIDEO: As win was slipping away...what Ospreys chased

VIDEO: Ospreys head coach Toby Booth said he was looking for four tries after it became evident that the Bulls were running away with the score in their Round 15 encounter of the United Rugby Championship at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.

Booth did not want to criticize the efforts of his team but rather applauded his players for chasing a fourth bonus point try instead vigorously, although the Bulls managed to keep them away from the try-line in the last ten minutes of the game.

“I said we are chasing four tries, whatever happens here.

“That’s what we do at the Ospreys. The game had gone for us, but as you saw, even with the last bit, we gave it a great game,” the critically thinking coach commented.

Despite a sterling performance against the Stormers last weekend and clinching one of the biggest victories for a Welsh side in many seasons, Ospreys could not replicate it against the Bulls.

“As I am sitting here, the Bulls were class. Sometimes you just got to go, ‘they were class’.

“There is some stuff around where we could’ve been better, but there’s also stuff that they did very very good.

“I think it was a good advert for playing against top teams, you need to be on it.

“And I think we were on it, but the difference was accuracy.

“There was a lot of motivation for us, the boys prepared well. There were no signs of anything but being ready for the task.”

Booth said he would not use the excuse of altitude, rather he offered the inaccuracies of his side as their downfall.

“We won’t use that as an excuse. We have plans for that. We have plans around travel, we have plans on when you are going to use your bench.

“If you are inaccurate and you have to go long distances repeatedly under panic and duress, the energy bank comes down quite quickly.

“I think the power game was definitely evident – they are a powerful team and we had to work extremely hard for the moments we created.

“The difference between this week and last was definitely the accuracy.

“And if you’re inaccurate – it can manifest in so many different areas – against a team with good athletes that can punish you quickly off turn-over.

“And you create turn-over for them, you pay a big price.

“We created a lot of pressure on the Stormers last week and capitalised on their inaccuracy.

“The Bulls created a lot of pressure for us today, and they capitalised off ours and that’s the story.”

What does this loss mean to them in terms of the rest of their campaign after having dropped to 10th place on the log?

“We’ve got an idea in mind if you look historically at the table about what you need to be into that top eight and that would be progress and then you see where it takes us.

“Like we did in Europe. We won a knock-out game first time ever, so I think there is a realism about where we are and what we are doing.

“I am never going to sit here and criticize the effort of our group, I think they are great. I love this group, I really do.

“But we have to learn to be accurate and have the qualities when it matters. That’s part of the learning curve.

“We know that the bear had been poked, or the bull had been poked I should say.

“Your squad depth gets challenged.

“Was it a game too far? I don’t know, but we came here confident enough in our own ability,” Both concluded.