I swear, we are our own worst enemies.
As Mr Pin1 might have put it: “Stop —ing kicking the —ing ball to the —ing opposition, especially when the —ing opposition is —ing Northampton”.
We will lose – and have lost – to worse teams than the one we faced on Saturday. That doesn’t make it any less disappointing, though.
With three minutes to go, seven points down, and ball in hand on the halfway line, I would have thought that the last thing you want to do is hoick the ball into a capricious wind and give it back to the best team in the league at returning it with interest. Especially since we had been having a modicum of success ball in hand for the previous seventy-odd minutes (when we trusted ourselves, that is).
I wonder if they thought that the swirling wind would turn a box kick into something like one of George’s spiral bombs. Maybe, but unpredictable plays should be used sparingly and under strict control. You don’t win titles playing stochastic rugby.
As I write this, it’s forty-eight hours later, and, unusually, I haven’t particularly calmed down about that final play. When the entire stadium is screaming “DON’T KICK IT!”, then, maybe, don’t kick it.
Which is a pity, because there was some pretty good action for large parts of this match – especially in the second half, when we’d woken up a bit. Proper, attritional stuff: action, grit, blood and guts, and with a generous sprinkling of skill, deftness, and errors.
It’s easy to rail against the late try – things that happen late in the game take on a disproportionate significance – but we should also look at the two early tries: going fourteen points down because we hadn’t fully switched on at the start of the game. And what about the three tries that each came within minutes of our own second-half scores, seemingly because we relaxed somewhat?
All of their tries came because they are masters at doing what great teams do: exploiting inattention, pouncing on mistakes, going from defence to attack in an instant.
We need to learn from them, and we need to get the younger lads more experience as soon as possible. The season’s gone, now: we’re twelve points adrift – that’s too big a gap to close. Fortunately, we’re also nine points ahead of the trailing pack. I think from here on in, we need to give the younger players the experience they need. I don’t mean that we should do what we did in Toulouse; we need to put out strong teams, with the intention of winning, but put a couple of the less experienced guys out there. Give Obi Ene a couple of games. Gilmore, Woodman: give them time and something to go for, with the support of the experienced guys. Put them on the bench, maybe, but make sure they get a decent amount of time on the pitch, not five minutes at the end. Put them on when we’re under the cosh, let them show what they’re made of.
Let’s give Tom Curtis a decent run, for goodness’ sake.
Let’s start next season with a bunch of fired-up, battle-hardened kids just waiting for their chance to take on the big guns.
Look at Alex Wills: a few weeks ago, he was a callow youth, with bags of potential but little experience. Given a chance when Buck was injured in the Autumn Internationals, he took it with both hands, and, in the space of a few games, he’s gone from promising academy graduate to seriously challenging Roebuck for that right wing spot.
Tom Burrow – with the advantage of England under-20 experience, admittedly – is now putting together a strong case to be a starter. We all know the progress Ben Bamber has made since coming out of Jonny Hill’s shadow. I’m sure most of the other “almost-there”s are champing at the bit to do the same.
So, give them their (carefully managed) chances to shine and let’s get to the stage where we can say, in every position, that, no matter who gets injured, the guy stepping up is just as good.
And stop —ing kicking the —ing ball away.
And so we go into the long hiatus, with just one home game between now and doomsday. Time for some of the wounded to recover; time for England to break a couple more…
That said, the PWR starts up again soon, and FC are still in action, so there’s rugby to watch over the next two months that isn’t Six Nations.
See you at Heywood Road.
- If you know, you know. ↩︎
an old grey dog 