MUSSELBURGH RFC head coach Grant Talac hit out at his players as Burgh were beaten by Cartha Queen’s Park on Saturday.

A late penalty try – Cartha’s second of the match – saw the visitors return west with five valuable league points, but Burgh did manage to get two points – a try bonus and losing bonus – in defeat.

Talac afterwards told Courier Sport he was “very disappointed” with the result, and criticised his players’ failure to stick to their game plan.

He said: “When we analyse the videos on our play and when we stick to our structure we score some nice tries.

“However, our ability to lose concentration and make a basic error at times is staggering.

“Before these penalty tries we were comfortably in possession and we then make a simple unforced error and end up under our posts wondering what went wrong.”

“My final message to the players after Saturday was that if you stick to the structure and concentrate for 80 minutes, we score tries and have a chance of winning.

“However if you go off game plan into randomness then it shall likely be more losses.

“It might be OK for the [Scotland] team to play that way but I’m afraid our skill set isn’t as good as that and the players need to realise this.”

The former Edinburgh and Heriot’s prop, who works for East Lothian Council when he’s not on the Stoneyhill touchline, had no complaints about the award of the decisive penalty try.

He said it was “probably the correct call”, adding: “We were under pressure in the scrum.

“However, having reviewed the video footage of the penalty try in the first half, I think we were very hard done by.”

Talac added that his side’s securing two points to fellow relegation-threatened Stewart’s Melville’s one, was his only “silver lining” from the weekend.

That propelled Burgh seven points clear of the final relegation spot with five games to play, the next of which is at Aberdeen Grammar next Saturday (March 3).