Sean Holley has sent a rocket the way of Cardiff after their 69-21 humiliation at the hands of Benetton, branding aspects of their performance at Stadio Monigo “unacceptable”.
Dai Young’s side conceded 10 tries and had their line broken 15 times in a dismal performance against opponents who had won just one of their previous nine United Rugby Championship games.
The result saw Cardiff finish 14th in the URC, with only the Dragons and Zebre below them.
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Holley, who helped coach the Ospreys to three league titles and left the region just months before they banked a fourth such crown, was distinctly unimpressed with the way the Arms Park club signed off for the season.
Analysing the match for BBC’s Scrum V, he highlighted clips showing defensive glitches, one of them starting after an Ellis Jenkins tackle and then seeing Benetton surge through for a try, brushing aside weak tackling as they did so, with Dmitri Arhip, Rhys Carre and Owen Lane unable to check the Italians.
"Ten tries against Leinster would be bad enough but this is Benetton, with all due respect. It's embarrassing.
“It’s just like going through the motions, a training session,” said Holley. “They [Cardiff's players] pile around the corner, leaving a space, which is a nightmare when you have scrum-halves darting around.
“Then the tackling afterwards is embarrassing.
“Watch this in slow motion. Look at these attempts: one, [Dmitri] Arhip; [Shane] Lewis-Hughes goes too far; [Rhys] Carre.
“I mean, it’s unacceptable.
“I’ve worked on games, I’ve commented on games, I’ve done analysis on games. That is in the first half. That to me is unacceptable anywhere against any team.” You can read more about Cardiff's Italian misadventure here.
Cardiff’s season was disrupted after they were engulfed by Covid issues in South Africa before Christmas, and they went into their final round of matches out of contention for anything in the league.
But the idea that there was nothing for them to play for against Benetton didn’t wash with Holley.
He continued, passionately: “Every time we put a jersey on, it’s your job now. It doesn’t matter if there’s nothing on it — everything’s on it. You are playing for a contract, you are playing for your team-mates, your coaches, you are playing for your friends and family who are watching. It’s your livelihood. They just have to make tackles and carry hard and stop people scoring.
“There’s something wrong there.
“It’s been a convoluted season with Covid, but at the end of the day, you have to be in there fighting for every inch when you go on the field.
“We didn't see that there.”
