The Swire Shipping Fijian Drua side dropped out of the top eight on the Super Rugby Pacific standings after going down 34-14 to the Western Force on Friday night.
Fans watched with a lot of hopes after the Mick Byrne-coached Drua downed the Hurricanes 27-24 in Suva a week earlier.
The performance of the Drua on Friday was not as impressive as how they played against the Hurricanes.
Byrne said the players failed to step up against the Force.
“Coming off a big win last weekend and thinking we were just going to turn up tonight (Friday) and it’s just going to happen. It was obvious we weren’t ready,” Byrne said.
Not being able to maintain possession was an eye sore for the Drua side.
“We turned the ball over probably eight or nine times in the fist phase. We can’t build a game like that. We probably will have to learn to go forward first before we go wide.
“The game started, and we just kept going wide allowing their line speed to keep coming up. They didn’t have to make a lot of hard tackles early on and we gave them a chance to start off on their home ground.”
Byrne added the schedule of their games demanded a lot of training which the players were still adjusting to.
“There’s no doubt the travel and all that affected us but that’s what we got. We have got to learn to deal with that. We can’t use that as an excuse.
“Two days after our last game, we spent 19 hours travelling but that’s the nature of the game, that’s what we are in, and we are grateful to be part of this competition.
“It has been great for us back home. The professionalism that we are growing and the ability for our players to learn what it means to be a professional rugby player, that’s just one of the parts of it.”
