Cardiff Blues can’t afford the level of ill discipline displayed in the New Year’s Day defeat to Ospreys, insists John Mulvihill.
Three yellow cards and 19 penalties conceded proved costly at Cardiff City Stadium, as Toby Booth’s side ran away with a 17-3 victory following Ifan Phillips’ try and a second half penalty try.
Mulvihill says his side invited pressure by allowing Ospreys to advance up the field but also believes his side must improve when they have the ball in hand.
“When you go into these games you need to play well enough to deserve to win, and we certainly didn’t play well enough tonight and that’s what we got,” said the Australian.
“You can’t give away 19 penalties, three yellow cards, piggy-back a team up the pitch and think you’ll come out on the right side of the result.
“I’m really disappointed with our discipline this week.
“Their first try came from back-to-back penalties, as did the next yellow card and the penalty try as well.
“We need to clean up a lot of that. We gave away six penalties in the first half, which I thought was bad enough, but we then gave away 13 in the second half.
“We were lucky to get away with it a little bit against Dragons last week, but if you give the opposition that much ball and chance to hurt you, in the end they will.
“We need to be better with the ball, and we don’t need to push the pass. We built a number of nice phases in the first half in the 22 but then threw simple offloads that weren’t on.
“Therefore you don’t mount pressure on the opposition with back-to-back pressure and that’s something that we need to be better at.”
Cardiff Blues’ festive derbies come to an end next week as they welcome Scarlets to the home of Cardiff City Football Club.
Mulvihill has challenged his side to prove a point against their Conference B rivals and expects an honest week of reviewing ahead of next week’s clash.
The head coach added: “We need to get up for it. I spoke to the boys on the field after the game, usually we’d do it in the changing room, and said that the only people who can turn this around are the guys on the pitch.
“We need to really review this and be hard on each other. We must turn up first day in and get back to winning ways.
“The intensity wasn’t there for us tonight in a lot of periods, while the Ospreys did have that.
“If we don’t front up next week, it’s not going to be pretty. But we have another opportunity and Scarlets are in our pool so it will be a really important game for both clubs.”