Dai Young says Cardiff’s lack of game-time was not an excuse following a heavy defeat the hands of Ulster on Friday.
The home side ran in seven tries at Kingspan Stadium as a 48-12 win took them to top spot in the United Rugby Championship.
Second half scores from Kirby Myhill and replacement James Ratti proved to be little consolation, but, in his post-match assessment, the director of rugby insists his side were punished for a lack of basic skills execution on the night.
The former Wales international said: “We can’t hide from the fact that it was a real poor performance. We haven’t played for a while but that’s a factor, not an excuse.
“The most disappointing factor was our execution of some basic skills. Our catch-and-pass skills were awful, we pride ourselves on one-up tackles which weren’t good enough tonight and our set plays.
“In the first 20 to 25 minutes, we turned the ball over 10 times and six of them were from first phase. You’ll never put teams under pressure like that.
“After 30 minutes they didn’t have to make a tackle and we didn’t stress them out at all.
“They went 17-0 up, but there wasn’t much in it, really. They scored from the bounce of a ball and an interception.
“But we couldn’t build anything through our poor lack of basic skills, because we made the basics look difficult.
“It was really disappointing and by far the worst performance since I’ve been here. I didn’t see it coming if I’m being honest.
“We knew it would be tough because we haven’t played for five weeks, again, but that’s not an excuse. It’s certainly not an excuse for some of the skills we demonstrated tonight.
“We were looking as coaches at some of the options we were doing, and we haven’t practised them. A lot of the stuff we were playing tonight was off the cuff.
“We were out of shape, out of structure and were stepping away from policies. A little bit of that came from being under pressure, which we haven’t been for a couple of weeks, and our game cracked.
“We didn’t help ourselves by giving away penalties and we lacked any sort of spring in our step.
“We looked flat across the board. Of course there was effort there, I’m not doubting for a minute that they weren’t trying. But we weren’t on the edge as we’ve been previously.
“I’ve just told the players in the changing room - team spirit and togetherness is easy when you’re winning. It’s certainly a bit harder when you’ve had a poor performance and a poor result like tonight.
“It will test us, and we’ll have to come out of it stronger. I said before the game, if we play like we can play then it will take a good team to beat us. Ulster are a good team but they didn’t need to be that good tonight, to be honest. I don’t think we pushed them at all.”
Next up for the Blue and Blacks is a trip to South Africa, where they will come up against Emirates Lions and DHL Stormers.
But Young insists his side cannot afford to dwell on the performance in Belfast and believes they must come together as a group to right the wrongs ahead of the journey to the Rainbow Nation.
“It’s part of the league and you want to be measured against good teams. Tonight we were up against a good team but didn’t make them work as much as we would’ve liked,” added the director of rugby.
“We let ourselves down but we just need to bounce back next week.
“The boys in there are all looking at the floor and looking hugely disappointed but there’s nobody down there to help them.
“What we need to look at is ourselves. The coaching team needs to look at what we’ve done, how we can get better because the messages we’ve said this week didn’t sink in.
“The players also need to look at each other, how they support each other and how the forwards and backs help each other.
“Now is not the time to point fingers, now is the time to get closer and work harder because that’s the only way we’ll move forward.”