Shimmi sees silver lining

The match, played in front of their home fans on a windy Green Mile, was plagued by handling errors – making it a stop/start affair – but the attitude showed by the players to remain in the contest, despite trailing by 18 points in the final minutes.

"The attitude the players showed to hang in there and remain in the contest is a major sign of their maturity levels. Shimlas put quite a few points on the board to leave us chasing the game but the determination shown by the players kept us in the match until the end.

"We gave ourselves the chance to possibly steal a victory at the end but it was not meant to be this time around.

"I feel that we defended really well in the first half and created a number of chances that we failed to convert. Under the circumstances, we were good at the line-outs and contested well. We will look to improve our set-pieces and be a bit more dominant there but, at this moment in time, I'm not too concerned.

"It's not easy playing in such windy conditions but that's not an excuse, the handling should be better. There will always be knock-ons, scrums and stop-start rugby in weather like that.," Shimange told rugby365.com.

With the wind at their back in the second half, they looked set to turn around a 0-5 deficit but some poor decision making – coupled with Shimlas scoring a nine-point try – led to their eventual demise.

"The bonus point try system was not an issue at all, both sides scored one of those tries but it never really affected our approach. We certainly had more chances to score but it never went our way this time.

"I think it [the loss] came down to us not being smart enough in the second half and that cost us. We know we need to improve our work rate at the breakdowns and generate quicker ball for the next phase," he added.

By Tauriq Ebrahim