Marr 24
Heriot’s 22
PHIL SMITH says his Heriot’s team have only themselves to blame for losing to a long range last gasp penalty at Marr, which leaves the Goldenacre outfit winless and stranded in the lower reaches of the BT Premiership table after two rounds of matches.
“We’re just not clicking yet. It wasn’t dissimilar to our defeat to Stirling County last week when we had some great moments but didn’t make enough of them count. I would say we did more good things this week so it was a step in the right direction in that sense, but we need to be more clinical,” said the head coach.
“We’re doing a lot of huffing and a lot of puffing, but we’re not blowing any houses down.”
“Fair play to Marr, they kept dogging it out, and every time we passed up an opportunity their resolve grew stronger,” he continued. “It was their first game at home in the Premiership and they had a really vocal crowd behind them, so that spurred them on and we just didn’t kill the game off when we had the chance.”
“In the last minute, we were pushing for the try which would have given us the bonus point win but lost control of the ball in their 22, and Marr ended up getting a penalty which they kicked from inside their own half. That’s the sort of thing that happens if you are on top but don’t make it count on the scoreboard.”
“For the second week on the trot we scored three tries in the first half and nothing after the break, so that’s something we need to look at. If we had managed just one try in each of those games then we would have been sitting up near the top of the table with ten points right now, but we’re not and we know we’re going to have to get a bit sharper before going to Glasgow Hawks next week.”
“If I’m being honest, pre-season was a bit disjointed this year, and we’ve got quite a few new faces so it is taking a bit of time to blend them into what we are trying to do. It would have been nice to have that done before the season started, but we are where we are.”
“There are 16 games left in the regular season so the focus is on getting a little better every week, and hopefully we can make enough of an improvement in the next seven days to get a result against Glasgow Hawks.”
“We’re not a million miles away from where we want to be and the boys are now working hard. The play-offs are still definitely an achievable target but we would like to have a home draw, so we need to start picking up some results soon.”