Oh, no, not again.
Watching Raffi limp off after fifty-five minutes, you have to wonder what the guy has to do to get a break. He must despair at the constant setbacks, just when he’s starting to show the old form again. As I write, there has been no official news of the severity of his injury, so fingers crossed that it was just a dead leg or something.
As for the game itself, it’s hard to complain about the effort, which was immense and unjustly rewarded (IMO), but the fact remains that that result realistically signals the end of playoff hopes for this season. After round nine, we’re seventh: exactly where we were last year after round eleven. Sounds good, but we had twenty-nine points then, compared to nineteen now.
OK, bonus point wins over the next two rounds will put us on the same points as the same round last year, but this year feels different. For one thing, we’re eight points adrift of Saracens in sixth. We have not been that far behind the team immediately above us in the last four or five years, and it’s a lot to make up. The only glimmer of hope that I can see is that we play all the leading teams except Exeter at home in the second half of the season. In other words, all of our away games so far have been against teams in the top six. Could we make up some ground? Probably, but will it be enough?
Regarding the Wills incident: I’ve seen them carded, but mostly they just result in a penalty. The directive these days seems to be to err on the side of leniency (at least compared to the enthusiasm for carding of the past few years), so I can see why that was given. The fact that Wills failed his HIA does suggest that the referee’s assessment of the level of danger was a bit off…
As for Rikki’s yellow: I thought it was harsh, especially watching Bath-Exeter the following day and seeing a Bath player hang about on the wrong side in pretty much an identical field position for a couple of seconds without even a comment.
I’d also like to know when the law came in, saying that a tighthead who drops onto both knees before collapsing the scrum is awarded the penalty…
But there’s no use pointing to a dodgy card as the reason we lost – we should have been further ahead before it happened. We were doing a good job of stifling their backline, as we usually do, but the attack wasn’t there to capitalise on it. Even so, you can still see the seeds of Joe Ford’s plan for the attack. Give it time, it’ll come together.
So, there’s a monumental task ahead if we’re to get anywhere close to the playoffs, but that (apart from that ridiculous single round in two weeks) is for after the Six Nations, when, presumably, England will have managed to injure our best players for us.
Meanwhile, we have a couple of rounds of “European” matches to look forward to. First up, the South African sharks come to town, exchanging their nice southern hemisphere summer for a nippy night in Salford. Hey, guys, welcome. Sorry, but the heating in your dressing room is on the blink, hope that’s not too inconvenient?
Then, after that, Toulouse (again). I know I was bemoaning the lack of French trips last season, but do we always have to go to Toulouse? This is the third time in just over three years. I mean, I like the place, but there are limits…
Update: I understand from Alex’s presser that Raffi’s knee isn’t too bad, and he is looking to return for the Saints’ game. Good news.
an old grey dog 