Ben Thomas pinpointed lapses in concentration and key decisions as the causes of Cardiff’s downfall against Emirates Lions.
The centre captained Cardiff at Ellis Park but saw his side trailing 14-0 after just 14 minutes. Both tries came from Cardiff errors and the Blue and Blacks were also unable to turn their own pressure into points for much of the first-half.
They fought back admirably in the second-half but the damage was already done and chasing the game at altitude, ran out of steam at the end.
Thomas said: “It’s very frustrating and we gave ourselves ample opportunities to be in that game, to win that game. I think a few lapses in concentration and a few poor decisions have probably cost us.
“When we let teams have to start like that, we're always going to be up against it. Then add the fatigue into that towards the end of the game and we started to make some silly decisions.
“It's tough to say (the altitude was difficult), it's hard to put it down to one thing, they're big men, that's always going to drain you. There's a lot of running, a lot of line breaks in that first 20 minutes. Ultimately in the end, we've run out of gas and started to make a few errors.”
Cardiff are next in action against HollywoodBet Sharks next Saturday in Durban, and the squad will fly to Natal tomorrow.
Thomas added: “We'll have tonight, tomorrow to dust ourselves off and then we'll go again next week. We'll have a full week's prep in South Africa. So we’ll definitely get a bit more acclimatised and then we'll rip into the Sharks next week.”