Unacceptable and shocking, coach Wilson blasts display

CARDIFF Blues coach Danny Wilson admitted he was shell-shocked by an “unacceptable collapse” from his team as they bombed out of Europe.

From leading 26-20 midway through the second-half, Wilson’s men ended up losing 46-26 to Gloucester in the Challenge Cup quarter-final at Kingsholm.

They conceded six tries in all, leaving their coach unhappy at the soft nature of some of the scores they leaked.

“For 50 minutes of the game, I thought we played some really good rugby,” said Wilson.

“We were in control and could possibly have been further in the lead. We got the game-plan right and were executing that relatively well.

“To go from 26-20 at 50 minutes, having held most of the field position at the start of the second half, to what we saw in the next 15-20 minutes was shell-shocking for all of us concerned.

“It’s very frustrating. To come off with a 46-26 loss is really tough.

“You saw three soft tries in a 15 minute period. The first one comes when we are applying pressure down the other end and there’s an overthrow at the tail of the lineout.

“A poor kick then leads to Matthew Morgan trying to run out of his own 22 and losing the ball and they score.

“Ok, that happens in a game of rugby and we’ve conceded a try, but we should be able to quickly regain control.

“Then we conceded two really soft tries from nothing. A dummy off a lineout play where they walk through and then a short-side attack where they go through two players.

“They were two poor defensive errors. The only way to really describe that is a complete collapse for 15 minutes.

“Credit to Gloucester, they took their opportunities well, but it was far too soft as far as I’m concerned.

“It was a 15-20 minute period that was unacceptable.”

Skipper Gethin Jenkins agreed that the Blues’ defence had let them down after a decent start.

“I thought we were comfortable in the game and put some good stuff together,” said the Wales and Lions prop.

“It’s just really disappointing the way we ended it.

“A couple of things let us down, defence especially.

“We let Gloucester score their tries quite easily with some poor defence. It’s something we are going to have to have a big look at.

“Once they put three or four phases together we were quite comfortable and they didn’t really look like beating us.

“But turnovers and first-phase defence just wasn’t really good enough.”