“We haven’t lost hope.”

The hard words of Toyota Cheetahs captain Adriaan Strauss after his side’s loss at the hands of the Crusaders in their Vodacom Super Rugby match this past weekend.

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Strauss was talking about how his side let in 50-plus points and now have no chance of making the playoffs, despite playing some exceptional attacking rugby at times, but losing as they let in way too many points.

Strauss gave the undertaking the players will get together this week and sort out the problems, so much so that they expect to arrive in Durban on Saturday to face the Cell C Sharks as a different side.

The pride factor is underlying and Strauss’ contention that the team is doing the right things on attack makes it just as frustrating for the side.

“We have the game plan in place, we have the right structures. We need to know when to play rugby and to respect the structure a little bit more,” Strauss said.

“We need that the difference between winning and losing on this level is a knock, or losing a ball in an attacking lineout, or going off the gameplan. I’m saying a lot but we’re still very positive, we haven’t lost hope. We’ll take responsibility and as players we’ll fix it because it is something we can fix.

“This was not an easy game for us, we wanted to play well and we wanted to do better. The fighting spirit will always be there.

“The guys never need much motivation to be up for the next game and we will be ready. We will be keen and we will be back playing our best.”

Strauss said while his team had come back during the game to take the lead it was disappointing they let that slip in the last 20 minutes and let in so many points.

“I think in the last couple of minutes when those tries were scored there was a clear lapse of concentration,” he added.

“ But we can’t always say we were close to it and we were in the game, we want to win and we want to play good rugby. We’ve got the right structures but I think when we don’t respect that, we put ourselves under pressure and we all look and feel vulnerable.

“It is something that we can fix though, I think it is also difficult because we have a lot of great players who can create something out of nothing but we need to get that balance right between sticking to the structures, getting into the right areas and then playing rugby.”

Strauss agreed that one of the Cheetahs biggest headaches was turnover ball and the breakdown they lost, a part of the battle that gave the Crusaders go forward ball when they needed it and allowed them to pull away from the home side in the end.

“They were quite good at the breakdown, but I also think at a lot of breakdowns last year we also slowed their ball down. We got double hits and carried guys back and that allowed us to set our defensive line.

“This year we allowed them to make yards and it creates problems in defence because you’re always on the back foot because it always creates momentum and quick ball. But saying that, we have been working hard on it and I can see us making progress. I know it’s nothing we can’t fix.”

Strauss said there wasn’t one particular area to pinpoint to “fix” this week ahead of the Sharks game, but rather a total mentality of making sure the soft moments don’t come.

“I don’t think there is one area we make a lot of mistakes in. There are handling errors and they won’t necessarily bemore on the day,” he added.

“Those soft moments, there isn’t a situation where we can say there are more of these and it occurs every single week. It is difficult to say. It has got something to do with the way we play but we need to look at rectifying that.”

The Cheetahs are currently in 14th spot on the log, one above the last-placed Stormers and have conceded a massive 303 points this season – 91 points more than the next worst team – the Queensland Reds.