Mains blames mistakes and injuries for Otago loss

Waikato 33 Otago 20

Otago still have a chance of making the semifinals, but to do so they must gain maximum points from their home games against Bay of Plenty and Taranaki in the next fortnight.

Otago dropped from fifth to seventh after losing to Waikato in Hamilton on Saturday.

"It was very frustrating. Individual skills and individual errors kept us down," Otago coach Laurie Mains said after the game.

Otago scored three superb tries and looked to have the game in their grasp when they closed the deficit to 20-23 after 28 minutes in the second half.

"We should have gone on and won the match from there," Mains said.

"But we are just not putting our game together."

It has been Otago's worst season for injuries since 1989, with experienced players in key positions on the injured list.

"We have had too many changes," Mains said. "We are still five players short of our best team.

"We can't get the continuity we want because we are not able to keep the same team together."

Mains felt that the main reasons for Otago's loss were the poor standard of the goalkicking and "the missing of two straight-forward tackles which let Waikato in for tries."

Otago also gave away two easy penalties when Waikato players were held back by the jersey. "That was very disappointing. Holding players back by the jersey is just not on," Mains said.

He was not concerned about the final Waikato try, scored by winger Roger Randle after an intercept in his own 22m.

"I don't count that. If we were points up, we wouldn't have given that one away."

Captain Anton Oliver put that final Waikato try in perspective.

"If Randle had missed it we could have been under the sticks ourselves," he said.

Oliver felt that Otago needed to be more accurate.

"We couldn't hold on to the ball and get our continuity."

He admitted that it had been a "messy" few weeks for the Otago team, with their All Blacks coming back and the injuries to key players.

Randle's try was his seventh of the season and it denied the visitors even a bonus point.

- NZPA