Josh Turnbull has challenged his Cardiff Under-18s team to respond as they return to Regional Age-Grade action against the Ospreys on Saturday (14:30).
The young Blue & Blacks fell defeat to reigning champions, the Scarlets, in the last round of action, following an encouraging opening round win over RGC.
Turnbull was disappointed with the performance in Llandovery but has been encouraged by the attitude and quality of training since, and wants to see that transferred to the next two rounds of action.
He said: “We were disappointed with the performance against Scarlets, but it was a game we started well. Bit we then began making back-to-back errors and the penalty count kept growing, which allowed the Scarlets to piggy-back up the pitch and imprint their game.
“There were glimpses of what we can go when we got our game right in both attack and defence. We showed we can cause teams problems and the challenge now is to cut down the errors and penalties so we don’t feed the opposition. We have to control the controllable.
“The attitude in training since thas been excellent and with a number of players stepping up to SRC Cup with Cardiff RFC, it gives us an opportunity to look at other members of our squad who have been working hard for the past couple of weeks.
“The Ospreys pose different threats and are traditionally well drilled at the set-piece and breakdown. We have put a big focus on those areas and have seen a lot of progress, so we want to see that put into practice on Saturday.”
Turnbull has made ten changes to the starting line-up, which is led by Ben Coomer, with a number of players getting game-time with Cardiff RFC.
Fin Hart, Lloyd Lucas, Ioan Penry and all featured last week against Llandovery, and are again included in the Rags match-day squad to face RGC this weekend.
Academy manager Gruff Rees added: “We’re all looking forward to this weekend and a return to Regional Age-Grade action.
“Our programme has been fully aligned through academy staff and some brilliant discussion with myself, Dan Fish and Josh and a real focus on player development.
“We want to win matches and perform well but player development is at the centre of every decision and we are looking forward to giving others playing opportunities, while challenging individuals at appropriate levels.”