There is no greater frustration for a coach to send his team out with a specific instruction yet have to reiterate it when they return.
Ian Rankin’s demand to his Dundee HSFP team prior to Saturday’s meeting with Stirling County was to be ruthless and kill off the opposition when they were on top.
As Brian Archibald’s winning penalty bisected the posts with three minutes left, the HSFP director of rugby was at the other end visibly fizzing at what he was seeing.
The fact that Dundee actually gave reliable Archibald two chances to pot the winner in an untidy 28-27 encounter could barely have helped, nor the news there had been a chance to put real distance between themselves and rivals like Ayr, surprisingly routed at Currie.
Instead, champions Melrose are already four points ahead.
Dundee had enough chances to win the game twice over and Rankin’s opposite number, the always-honest Eddie Pollock, reckoned that his team would lose nine of 10 contests under the same circumstances.
Despite completely dominating the game for the middle hour, enjoying a significant scrummage advantage and cutting through almost at will at times, the Mayfielders left with only a losing bonus point instead of the full five they should have had.
The coach could only take solace in some “pretty honest” personal appraisals from his players, the fact that the 2nd XV is putting serious pressure on anyone slacking in the top team, and that there is still evidence that it won’t take much to put right other than more intensity at training and a few strained vocal cords.
“We’d hoped we’d had enough wake-up calls in the last couple of games, but clearly we need a few more,” said the coach. “If what we get out of this game is a positive reaction at last then it might have been worth it.”
Dundee scored three good tries, through Simon Forrest, Cam Wyper and Danny Levison, but the final pass went astray on as many as four other occasions when the intended recipient would have been able to stroll in.
Rankin continued: “We’re creating plenty of opportunities, but there’s a bit of a lack of decision-making and composure, and occasionally guys are trying to do much by themselves. It’s something that only needs a little fine-tuning to put right.
“I’ve always had the coaching philosophy that when you have the ball, all the pressure should be on the defending team, and sometimes they have to realise that.”
County, in contrast, took almost all the scoring chances they got, even if their sole attacking options were a decently-drilled rolling maul or getting the ball to their powerful young centre Danny Gilmour.
However, their one try from more open play highlighted the difference; Dundee carelessly failed to guard the side of a ruck on halfway, Sean Kennedy shot through the yawning gap and spun a perfect pass for the supporting Graham Lindsay to score.
The other issue that hamstrung Dundee was a lop-sided penalty count of 15 to 7 against them, six of them in the opening 15 minutes which allowed County, without a win coming in, to gain a foothold in the game.
Yet even then one would be hard pressed to dispute any of the referee’s decisions and it was County who had two men spend 10 minutes in the sin-bin to the visitors’ one.