The Volts let themselves down with a disappointing display with the bat during day two of their Plunket Shield fixture against Wellington at the Basin Reserve yesterday.
It is not the first time this year Otago's much-vaunted batting line-up has fallen short. The team was dismissed for just 63 against Central Districts a few weeks ago and, arguably, yesterday's performance was not much better.
In good batting conditions Otago slumped to 77 for five. A brilliant counterattacking innings from Neil Wagner helped lift the team's total to 242.
Wagner added 66 in a brutal assault to cap off a wonderful few days. Earlier, he wrapped up Wellington's first innings for 312 when he picked up Jeetan Patel's wicket.
Wagner finished with career-best figures of seven for 96. The South African-born left-armer has already taken 18 wickets this season and is on track for a call-up for the national team when he becomes eligible at the end of the summer.
But bowling is not the problem for Otago - batting is. Wellington had reached 93 for one at stumps and leads by 163 runs with two days to play. Otago's failing with the bat has left its bowling attack a lot of hard work just to stay in the battle.
"I'm starting to get a wee bit impatient with the batting," Johnson said.
"It is just not good enough to be losing five wickets in a session on this deck. We just seem to be finding ways to get out.
"We got a couple of bum decisions but you can't blame that. We have to get mentally harder in terms of batting through sessions and sticking to our goals.
"We ended up with a 70-run deficit [from the first innings] when we should have had a 270 run lead, really. Some of the guys are down on confidence a bit, I suppose.
"We've got to address it."
Wellington resumed on 292 for nine with Jeetan Patel undefeated on 70 and Andy McKay yet to face a ball.
Patel added 11 to his overnight score before he became Wagner's seventh victim.
Otago's reply got off to a dreadful start. The captain Aaron Redmond's poor beginning to the summer got worse when the experienced right-hander was giving out caught in the slips.
The Otago camp felt the ball came from the toe of Redmond's shoe rather than the edge of his bat.
But there was no such confusion about Neil Broom's dismissal. The former Black Cap has also had a terrible start to the season and missed out again. He was caught in the slips after driving at a delivery from James Franklin.
When Craig Cumming was bowled by Scott Kuggeleijn, Otago had slumped to 53 for four. The situation had not improved greatly by lunch with the in-form Sam Wells joining the rest of the top order in the dressing room.
Nathan McCullum and Derek de Boorder added 88 for the sixth-wicket but both were dismissed in sight of half centuries.
Wagner, batting with nothing to lose, smacked a series of boundaries and brought up his fourth first-class half century with a six off the bowling of Jeetan Patel.
His 50 came from just 34 deliveries and featured five sixes and four fours. The left-hander also did a wonderful job protecting Otago No 11 James McMillan from the strike. McMillan remained at the non-striker's end for a good 15 minutes while Wagner flayed boundaries and milked the strike.
England international Steven Finn secured an early breakthrough for Otago with Michael Papps nicking out for four but Stephen Murdoch (51) and Harry Boam (37) returned the fight to Otago and will resume today.
