Skinner: I’m really disappointed with our performance

I’m really disappointed. 

I think this is the first time this season where I didn’t feel that the basics were good enough. We didn’t come out of the changing room in the first half well enough, we were too slow to things, and we didn’t work hard enough, and that’s not something that I’ve been able to say. 

In every other game, the positives that we’ve been able to take out of the performance have been the way that the players have been chipping away at the way that we’re trying to play. 

The thing is, in terms of work rate and attitude, those are things that you you’ve just got to want to have, and we haven’t had that tonight. 

At half-time, we spoke about that and said that it was completely unacceptable. In the second half, we started to fight a little bit harder and were able to create some chances, but it was too little too late. We’ve got to reflect on that to make sure we move forward ready for Sunday. 

 

We played really well on Sunday, so it is disappointing not to follow that up. 

We deserved to get a point out of the game on Sunday, but to go from that to tonight’s performance in such a short space of time is not the character that we want within the team and the way that we want to play. 

It’s not what we want to portray to our fans, and we’re really grateful to them for travelling today as well. 

We’ve always been able to talk really positively about the attitude, the work ethic and the resilience, the never-say-die to the end, and we were certainly better towards the end of the game. First half in particular, we were just way off the pace.