That would explain a lot of things.
The bigger thing to remember is that without the Break Tackle skill, a saurus can be tied up very, very easily, or force me to waste a block or blitz elsewhere. AG1 fucking sucks. Only two of them even have guard, though, one being the kroxigor who's prone to unreliability between bone'ead and loner. Between that and a charging pestigor getting effectively ST4, and there's a lot of muscle to cover.
If you want to tie them up next time, sic rotters on them. Can't dodge, have to tackle them down even if it's at an advantage. They're also likely to die fairly quickly with Decay, so they're rather definitely fodder... but that's probably what you should be using them for. Tying up others so the warriors can exert pressure where it's needed to break away opposition.
If the minotaur hadn't died, that would have made things much more difficult. ST6 is pretty nasty to have to deal with.
Thinking about it, I suppose trying to go for blocks rather than just going for movement supression was an issue. You don't really want to throw bodies at getting a krox down, or other big guy, since they generally have weaknesses in terms of stupidity or lonerness. Tying down saurusses would have been enough, because it takes a lot of skinks for reliable blocks, and you can limit their effectiveness with a few well-placed players to cover. At worst you'll probably face a 1D block, and more likely 2D defender chooses.
Point is: saurus' major weakness is the lack of agility and skills, and they can be stopped fairly easily if you don't mind taking a few blocks.