Kings to build better foundation

Southern Kings boss Alan Solomons admitted his team will be "punished" heavily if they continue to turn over ball as easily as they have so far in Super Rugby.

After a promising start to their debut season, a win over the Western Force, the Kings have been competitive without being really threatening - going down to the Sharks, Chiefs and Crusaders by ever-growing margins.

Kings Director of Rugby, Solomons, feels it is because they are not retaining possession and do not have a sound enough foundation.

Speaking to this website ahead of their Round Seven encounter with the Hurricanes in Wellington on Saturday, he pointed to ball retention and the set-piece as the two areas they have focused on most for improvement.

"I think we have defended really well," Solomons said, adding: "The difficulty we've had is just we haven't had a lot of ball.

"When we have to defend as much as we do, it makes it difficult.

"One area we have been working on is getting our hands on the ball and retaining possession - that I think has been a key factor in every game we've played in Super Rugby.

"We have been on the short end of the stick as far as possession is concerned and that has made our life tough."

It is a well known fact that defence takes a lot more out of you than playing with ball in hand and that fatigue factor comes into play in latter stages of games.

"You do yourself a huge favour by having more of the ball and defending less," the Kings boss said.

"We have put in an enormous amount of tackles [660 tackles in four games at an average of 165 tackles per game].

"That is something we want to address - we do want to keep our defence sharp, but we want to get into a situation where we want to secure good first phase ball and then holding onto it."

Solomons felt that while the Kings' set-piece did require some improvement, they have not been that far off the pace: "It is certainly something we can do better.

"We were turned over at one scrum and a few line-outs were lost [against the Crusaders] last week. They [the Crusaders] are obviously a very good side and we were disrupted on a number of occasions.

"What we are looking at is to constantly improve our set-piece, because that is the foundation - that is where it starts.

"We have been making progress as the competition has gone on.

"What we have to appreciate, at this level, if you make a mistake - you drop a pass or it is a poor pass, or you lose the ball in contact - then you don't see the ball for about five minutes.

"That is the thing we have to understand, if you turn over ball, you pay a price for it.

"Obviously, it's difficult when you are in a competition, because you don't get the same amount of time for practice. However, we are continuing to work hard on our skills, both in terms of catch-pass and our breakdown skills.

"It is vital that we are able to retain the ball through phases - those are certainly areas we have to continue to work on."

Solomons suggested that this week's opponents, the Hurricanes, have become a bit more structured under the tutelage of Mark Hammett, a former Crusaders stalwart - who is now into his third season as the head coach of the Hurricanes.

"However, they do have some outstanding gamebreakers and we have to be alive and alert at all times [on Saturday]," the Kings mentor said.

"I have spoken about turnovers and they are the type of side that will punish you.

"They are a bit of a different challenge and there is more of an element of unpredictability about them than some of the teams we've played so far.

"However as I said, Mark Hammett's influence - coming from the Crusaders - has certainly brought a little more structure to their play."

By Jan de Koning