Brunei's captain Muhammad Redha Hj Adinin felt that they paid the price for their own mistakes in their 38-13 loss to Mongolia in the Asian Rugby Football Union (ARFU) Asian 5 Nations IV tournament yesterday.
Redha confessed to The Brunei Times that they could have done better and are moving on with no regrets, but they will need to make up for it in their match against Cambodia on Saturday. "There were a lot of offside lines and the referee did warn us," admitted Redha.
"They did a lot of offences though, it's just that the referee couldn't pin them because we didn't even fix our own mistakes. "The referee was just being fair.
"Our tackling was great.. We observed they were not really good at ball handling but we couldn't take advantage of it," he said. Redha noticed that despite the Mongolians being physically bigger in height and size, the Bruneians felt they were the stronger team.
Mongolia's captain Dashdendev Austin Gansukh felt that Brunei had the upper hand when it came to issue of physique. "If you have guys who are not as tall they tend to go into the rucks a lot quicker, and the bulkier they are the more difficult it is going to be to remove them, so Brunei did really well," said Gansukh.
Despite ending their opening match with the win, Gansukh admitted that they still need to work on their game before heading into their next match against Cambodia tomorrow. "We have to do a lot of analysis and we have to correct our errors," noted Gansukh.
"We lost quite a few balls straight from the first ball direct from hits, and I'm not really happy about that," he added. Gansukh also said that if they can improve on recycling the ball faster and effectively, they will have better chances at scoring tries in their next game.
"After that I think we have some good try-scorers around the park, so hopefully, next game, it's going to be tough - but hopefully we can have an edge. "We had only a few opportunities and I think we executed 'not bad', I would say 'not bad'
"But I think if the conditions were a lot drier obviously there would be less knock ons and the passing would be a much better. "But we cannot make excuses
"I wish Brunei the best of luck in their match against Cambodia and I'm sure they're going to put on a good show," added Gansukh. Brunei vice-captain Ahmad Faez Anuar is already looking forward to their game against Cambodia - who beat them 38-0 and 28-0 during last year's Division V tournament in Cambodia.
"We can't really dwell on tonight, we got another game on Saturday so we've just got to rest up tonight and fix a couple of things - especially our defensive line - and hopefully we come back out stronger," said Faez, who thanked the crowd for cheering the team on for the whole 80 minutes.
"On another note, I want to take my hat off to the boys. "They were really good and I don't think anyone's walking out of here hanging their heads."
