Stags coach Dale MacLeod: ‘We should have won that’

Southland Stags coach Dale MacLeod bounced from disappointment to a sense of pride, and back to frustration when trying to assess his team’s season opener.

The Stags kicked-off its 2022 National Provincial Championship campaign with a gutsy 27-20 first-up loss to last year’s premiership finalists Tasman Mako.

A blowout looked inevitable in Blenheim on Sunday evening when Tasman went 27-10 up at halftime.

However, Southland attracted plenty of admirers through its spirited second-half showing. It brought the score back to 27-20 and hammered away for most of the final 20 minutes in an attempt to level the scores up and send the game to golden point extra time.

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MacLeod’s initial reaction soon after the game was one of disappointment.

“We could have and should have won that…Things like missing touch, losing ball in contact, they are the things that don’t allow us to build pressure.

“We went up here to get four [competition] points, not one. We’ve got to be better than that. If we want to do something in this competition we’ve got to be winning those games,” McLeod said.

But even MacLeod, who demands high expectations from the group, which largely has come off a club season, couldn’t shy away from handing his players some praise.

“I can’t fault the intent and what the boys showed. That last 40 [minutes] we dominated it, we just needed to be a wee bit more patient.”

“I do have to be really proud of the effort against a very good Tasman side. The last three years we’ve come up here and had 50 points put on us. So to come up and show what we showed, it shows this team has got something.”

The Stags did not just take on a Super Rugby-stacked Tasman team, but it went into the game in Blenheim on the back of a horror build up.

The team flew to Christchurch on Saturday and boarded a plane to Wellington. That flight however was diverted to Palmerston North, and they then hopped on a bus to head back to Wellington.

The idea was the Stags would then fly to Christchurch on Sunday morning in two different groups and bus to Blenheim for a delayed 7pm kick-off.

However, a charter flight was arranged out of the Kapiti Coast Airport on Sunday which arrived at 3.30pm for a 6.35pm kick-off.

“It’s not a high-performance way to prepare, but it is what it is, and we can’t be making excuses.”

Added to that lock Ben Morris suffered a knee injury in a warm-up lineout before the game. It meant Joe Robins was rushed into the starting lineup and the Stags went into the game one forward short on the bench.

MacLeod acknowledged they had some gassed players late in the game and not having that extra sub to call on hurt them.

Morris will have scans on the knee, but MacLeod said it looked serious and could be season-ending.

Southland’s depth is a concern and the loss of Morris is likely to be a big blow.

Next up is Auckland in Invercargill on Sunday for the Stags.

“I would like to think the group is getting better each week. It’s a massive change for what our boys play at club level, they’ll take another couple of games to get used to it,” MacLeod said.

“We’ve got Auckland [on Sunday], so it doesn’t get any easier. But I’ll back our boys to go back home and beat Auckland in Invercargill.”