Ospreys head coach Allen Clarke is planning a rebuilding job at the region after admitting that in failing to make the European Champions Cup they let down their fans.
In a frank assessment of how far they have fallen, the Ulsterman – who suffered at the hands of his former province on Sunday – has spoken of “putting the pieces together” after a fractured and often fractious campaign.
The Ospreys would have sneaked into Europe’s top tournament had they beaten Ulster at the Kingspan Stadium. Instead, they were stuffed, 35-17, and Clarke has recognised the limpness of their efforts over the last two years – which pre-dates his arrival – by talking about returning to the Champions Cup by the “front door” rather than the play-off tradesman’s entrance which proved beyond them in Belfast.
“We are rebuilding and resetting our squad,” said Clarke who was appointed as the permanent successor to Stave Tandy last month.
“There are changes happening, a number of people moving on, people coming in. It’s important to thank those who are going for their services, they’ve had better days as an Osprey, undoubtedly, but we recognise their efforts.
“There’s a lot to look forward to but it’s essential that in pre-season we are able to build momentum from the start, enjoy all aspects of our work to be the best professionals we can be day in, day out.
“We feel we let ourselves down and we let our supporters down today. They just want to see people giving their all and we spoke about that beforehand. As much as we want to win for ourselves we want to win for the Ospreys supporters.
“Every team needs good support in the tough times and this has been a tough season. There are aspects of our game where we need to improve, quite clearly, and now is the time to reflect on those, then come in for pre-season refreshed and ready to work hard.”
“We do have work to do, to improve key aspects of our game, ball retention, our shape, just do the simple things well. There’s a core of a really good squad at the Ospreys, quality players, it’s about putting the pieces together and doing the simple things well.
“Ulster didn’t do anything fantastic today. They challenged us at the breakdown, they played with momentum and they kept their line speed up in defence. We didn’t deal with that.”
Clarke has recognised there will be clean slate this summer. Much like their relegated football club, it is the end of an era at the Swansea region.
Next season, they begin again without Dan Biggar, Rhys Webb and others, but bolstered by additions such as Scott Williams and George North.
Clarke added: “We’ll address certain aspects of how we play. We have adjusted things over the last three months but we’ll kick on now over the summer in terms of how we go about our business.
“I’m thoroughly looking forward to it. Our focus for next season has to be the PRO14, get to the knockout stages and qualify for the Champions Cup through the front door, through our domestic league, and see how far we can go in the Challenge Cup.
“We all saw the euphoria around Cardiff winning the Challenge Cup, there are quality teams in that competition next season, we’ll want to see how far we can go in that.”
Wales skipper Alun Wyn Jones grabbed a rare try, but it wasn’t enough to seal a place for the Swansea -based region in Europe’s premier club competition for the 2018-19 campaign.
In the end it was Ulster who came out on top thanks to a brace of tries from Craig Gilroy, a Kieran Treadwell effort, and a late Jacob Stockdale intercept.
Home scrum-half John Cooney ended the game with 15 points to render second-half Ospreys efforts from Jeff Hassler and Biggar irrelevant.