Dai Young says Cardiff were let down by a lack of discipline and accuracy, despite some positive moments, as they suffered defeat to Ospreys in the United Rugby Championship on Saturday.
The visitors crossed for two tries, through wings Josh Adams and Owen Lane, but six penalties from the boot of Gareth Anscombe was enough for Toby Booth’s men.
Young believes his side will reflect on the encounter and see that they left points out on the field of play but they were ultimately let down by the penalty count and handling errors.
“We spoke before the game about the challenge up front and the penalty count went against us,” said the director of rugby.
“In total it was something like 19 to six with nine from the set piece. You’re always going to do it tough with stats like that.
“But in saying that I still think that we produced quite a lot of opportunities on the edge and on occasions we just weren’t accurate enough.
“We held the ball when we should’ve used it and dropped too many on the edges as well.
“Although we’d probably have to put our hands up and say that we were second best at set piece time, and certainly the penalty count would suggest that, I thought we played good rugby.
“We’ll look back at that on Monday and feel like we left some points out there.
“We scored two tries, were happy with our defence but at the end of the day they took the spoils.
“On occasions it was hard for us to mount any sort of pressure. We were giving too many penalties away.
“Our turnovers were 17 to six, but we were trying to play too much on occasions.
“You are putting your skills under pressure the more you’re trying to play. We over-played and spilt the ball.”
Cardiff now head into back-to-back home games against South Africa opposition, as Vodacom Bulls and Cell C Sharks visit the capital in the coming fortnight.
Young insists the Blue and Blacks can’t dwell on the defeat in Swansea as they look to bounce back immediately.
The former Wales prop added: “Something that jumps out at you from both games is the discipline. I don’t mean foul play, but we’re giving away too many penalties and that’s a definite work on for us.
“We know what’s coming. Any team looking at the last two games are going to try and challenge us up front.
“But we just need to be better. It’s as simple as that.
“There’s no time to sulk or point fingers. What we need to do is just get better.
“The physicality was right up there, so there’s a lot of bumps and bruises and tired bodies. But we have to dust ourselves off.
“We need to look at the positives. We came second best in some areas but we still could’ve scored more points and who’s to say we couldn’t have snuck it at the end.”