The Border Bulldogs’ losing run continued after they registered their third consecutive loss when going down 22-34 to the Leopards in a Currie Cup qualifier on Friday evening.
Head coach Elliot Fana blamed Friday’s loss at the Buffalo City Stadium on the players’ attitude which he said was “not impressive on the day”.
According to him, “character cannot be coached”, and thus players needed to take responsibility.
Border, having started with three successive wins, now find themselves languishing eighth on the log with their hopes of qualifying for the Premier Division slowly drifting away.
Next up for the Border side will be a tough trip to Welkom on Saturday where they will face the seventh-placed Down Touch Griffons.
Fana was in low spirits after the match. “One is very disappointed, for the sake of the players but most importantly for the supporters who came out in numbers to watch rugby,” he said. “By our standards, this was poor because we are an attacking team and in order to be successful in our attacks we need to build phases and for 40 minutes we could not build more than five phases.
“We were just not in gear at all because we were outplayed on the ground where we were not effective at all.”
Border were all over the show, especially in the opening half where the Leopards’ backline bullied them throughout.
The home side committed too many schoolboy errors and they paid dearly.
And Fana conceded as much: “This is one of our worst games and the sooner we forget about it the better, because there is no turning back. We are starting to let our community down and that is not right because we are professionals and the community is expecting us to do better.”
During the first 40 minutes the Bulldogs managed only one goal and a penalty with the try coming through in the 40th minute courtesy of tight-head prop Johannes Jonker.
The Leopards had a field day dominating in all aspects of the game, with their fullback Rhyno Smith delivering a man-of-the-match performance.
Border’s second half showing was much improved, perhaps as a result of the changes that were made, but still lacked that little something.
Wing Makazole Mapimpi, who had not scored a try in two matches, registered his sixth try of the season.
Leopards coach Jonathan Mokoena said the victory was a major confidence boost which he hoped would signal a positive change of fortune after a poor start to the season.
“Coming here we knew that it was going to be a physical encounter and we wanted to out-muscle the Bulldogs, which we did. We pride ourselves with skillful players and we always try to create for those individuals such as Rhyno Smith to attack.”
The Leopards managed four tries, one of them by the sensational Smith, who was also accurate with his boot.
Smith finished with 19 points after kicking a penalty, an amazing 55-metre dropped goal, to add to his try and four conversions.
Bulldogs start to fall apart
Head coach Elliot Fana blamed Friday’s loss at the Buffalo City Stadium on the players’ attitude which he said was “not impressive on the day”.
According to him, “character cannot be coached”, and thus players needed to take responsibility.
Border, having started with three successive wins, now find themselves languishing eighth on the log with their hopes of qualifying for the Premier Division slowly drifting away.
Next up for the Border side will be a tough trip to Welkom on Saturday where they will face the seventh-placed Down Touch Griffons.
Fana was in low spirits after the match. “One is very disappointed, for the sake of the players but most importantly for the supporters who came out in numbers to watch rugby,” he said. “By our standards, this was poor because we are an attacking team and in order to be successful in our attacks we need to build phases and for 40 minutes we could not build more than five phases.
“We were just not in gear at all because we were outplayed on the ground where we were not effective at all.”
Border were all over the show, especially in the opening half where the Leopards’ backline bullied them throughout.
The home side committed too many schoolboy errors and they paid dearly.
And Fana conceded as much: “This is one of our worst games and the sooner we forget about it the better, because there is no turning back. We are starting to let our community down and that is not right because we are professionals and the community is expecting us to do better.”
During the first 40 minutes the Bulldogs managed only one goal and a penalty with the try coming through in the 40th minute courtesy of tight-head prop Johannes Jonker.
The Leopards had a field day dominating in all aspects of the game, with their fullback Rhyno Smith delivering a man-of-the-match performance.
Border’s second half showing was much improved, perhaps as a result of the changes that were made, but still lacked that little something.
Wing Makazole Mapimpi, who had not scored a try in two matches, registered his sixth try of the season.
Leopards coach Jonathan Mokoena said the victory was a major confidence boost which he hoped would signal a positive change of fortune after a poor start to the season.
“Coming here we knew that it was going to be a physical encounter and we wanted to out-muscle the Bulldogs, which we did. We pride ourselves with skillful players and we always try to create for those individuals such as Rhyno Smith to attack.”
The Leopards managed four tries, one of them by the sensational Smith, who was also accurate with his boot.
Smith finished with 19 points after kicking a penalty, an amazing 55-metre dropped goal, to add to his try and four conversions.
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