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Cape Town - Western Province coach Allister Coetzee admits his team dropped their guard mentally after failing to beat a young Blue Bulls side at Newlands over the weekend.
The spoils were shared 24-all after the home side squandered a 21-9 lead with 20 minutes left. WP, however, could count themselves lucky not to have lost after Bulls flyhalf Tony Janties missed a late conversion to win the match.
The Bulls gradually gained the ascendency on the physical front and also demolished their opponents at scrum time, where WP prop Brok Harris was at the receiving end of the powerful Morné Mellett, who humiliated his opponent under the new "crouch, bind, set" scrum engagement rules.
But Coetzee insists his players were just below standard on the day, and that they lacked focus.
"We played against ourselves in this game," he told the Cape Times.
"We conceded 13 penalties to their eight. We were lucky as well that they missed so many kicks (three), our turnover count was also big. And I must give credit to them for scrumming so well - it was unbelievable how they turned it around (from Super Rugby).
"But (the loss was) a wake-up call, you can never think you can just turn up at Newlands and win. Unfortunately, I don't think we were mentally focused for this game - I think we dropped the guard slightly, and it's disappointing.
"We fell a bit behind with our work ethic on the field. I don't think that we worked as hard as we normally do on the field to get numbers out, to get the double-hits in on defence," said Coetzee.
WP's next match is against the Free State Cheetahs at Newlands on Saturday (19:15 kick-off).
The spoils were shared 24-all after the home side squandered a 21-9 lead with 20 minutes left. WP, however, could count themselves lucky not to have lost after Bulls flyhalf Tony Janties missed a late conversion to win the match.
The Bulls gradually gained the ascendency on the physical front and also demolished their opponents at scrum time, where WP prop Brok Harris was at the receiving end of the powerful Morné Mellett, who humiliated his opponent under the new "crouch, bind, set" scrum engagement rules.
But Coetzee insists his players were just below standard on the day, and that they lacked focus.
"We played against ourselves in this game," he told the Cape Times.
"We conceded 13 penalties to their eight. We were lucky as well that they missed so many kicks (three), our turnover count was also big. And I must give credit to them for scrumming so well - it was unbelievable how they turned it around (from Super Rugby).
"But (the loss was) a wake-up call, you can never think you can just turn up at Newlands and win. Unfortunately, I don't think we were mentally focused for this game - I think we dropped the guard slightly, and it's disappointing.
"We fell a bit behind with our work ethic on the field. I don't think that we worked as hard as we normally do on the field to get numbers out, to get the double-hits in on defence," said Coetzee.
WP's next match is against the Free State Cheetahs at Newlands on Saturday (19:15 kick-off).
