On reflection, this result has been on the cards since pretty much the start of the season. Stuttering against Saints first up, the debacles at Exeter and Quins, unconvincing against Newcastle and ponderous against Bath and Sarries. The engine has been misfiring from the outset.
They say that the best teams know how to win ugly. That’s true, but it’s because the best teams only need to win ugly once or twice in a season. If you’re winning ugly every other match, then pretty soon the wheels are going to come off.
I don’t think I’ve ever been less inclined to write one of these reports than now. We have had significantly worse defeats than this one — two in this season alone — and yet I’ve never felt at quite such a loss for words as I do even now, three days later.
Every time I open this up to write something, I find a more important task to attend to: counting paperclips, re-organising the utensil drawer…
My problem is that I can’t really find any upsides to that game. We should have won. We ought to have won. We needed to win. And yet, it all went wrong.
I had a bad feeling about this ever since seeing how absolutely cream-crackered they all looked at the end of the previous game. Fielding the same set of forwards six days after they had played themselves into the ground did not bode well.
I can’t help but wonder if we might not have been better advised to give the likes of Bamber, Dugdale and even Woodman a start on the basis that fresh, if inexperienced, guys are more likely to hold out than a bunch of old hands who are already running on reserve.
I know – I absolutely know – that they gave everything they had out there. I would never accuse any of the squad of not trying their best, so there must be another explanation for why they butchered — what? — three, maybe four goal-line opportunities.
Bristol played well, but they weren’t that good.
And what’s happened to the defence? From duck’s arse to leaky colander in seemingly no time.
Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it. This was a significant blow to our aspirations for the seasons but not fatal. As they say, it’s not the fact of the defeat that concerns much so much as the manner. There’s a spark from last year that just isn’t there this year.
Next up, a trip to South Africa, that well-known part of Europe. Also, do the clubs have to fund the cost of all this travel themselves, or do the competition organisers chip in? It would seem a bit of an imposition to announce that South African sides are now part of the competition and oh, by the way, you’ll have to pay your own way to play them.
For my part, forget this game. It’s much more important to get some key players rested enough for a major push for points at Gloucester before the long Six Nations break. I would rather go out of Europe entirely than have a bunch of walking wounded stagger out on the Kingsholm plastic and lose even more ground in the Premiership.
Enjoy a few days of summer in the middle of winter, lads, but come back refreshed, not broken. Please.
an old grey dog 