Southern Kings keep breaking all the wrong records

Apart from being bottom of the log, there are other unwanted statistics stacking up behind the name of the struggling Isuzu Southern Kings.

During their 43-0 drubbing at the hands of Munster at Irish Independence Park, the Kings’ long-running problems with Guinness PRO14 referees continued.

Not only were the Kings blanked on the scoreline, they were blasted on the penalty count.

Italian referee Andrea Piardi awarded 15 penalties against the Kings, while none went against Munster.

No team in the competition has had more penalties awarded against them than the Kings.

After 15 matches, they have conceded 218 penalties, which has not helped their bid to climb off the foot of the table.

The Kings are also bottom of the log in the disciplinary statistics.

So far, they have been shown 21 yellow cards and two red.

It is a problem that Kings head coach Deon Davids will be anxious to fix before his team face champions Leinster in Dublin on Friday.

After the Munster clash earlier in the campaign, Davids said: “There were a few things that were frustrating, but I would rather focus on where we can improve.

“We undid a good performance in the first half by some bad discipline in the second half. That is something we will have to look at and improve on.

“When you struggle in the scrums you concede penalties and that influences your fluency when you lose territory.

“Also, the yellow cards did not help us.

“Referees and the Kings have not been seeing eye to eye, and this resulted in a plan of action being devised to get both parties on the same page.

“Matters reached a head when the Kings had 22 penalties awarded against them against Ulster in Port Elizabeth at the start of the season,” Davids said.

“We always differ in terms of certain interpretations,” the coach said after the Ulster match.

“What we have done was to get in Mark Lawrence and Stuart Berry, who work for SA Rugby, and also with the PRO14 to look at our game and areas that we can improve in.

“So they were here in Port Elizabeth and we had an indepth look at where we need to improve,” he said.

“We also wanted to get a background of the referees and their culture. Referees from different countries look differently at certain things.

“The Kings have to understand how referees react and what their focus areas are.

“So we have made a concerted effort to better understand them and for them to look at the way we do stuff so we can improve

“We also have a local referee who comes in once a week to focus on areas to see whether there is improvement.”