It’s getting to be like the old days, isn’t it? That feeling of dread before every game. I mean, I wasn’t expecting a win but I thought we’d do a bit better than that.
So, who’s stolen our defence? In two games, we’ve shipped eighty-seven points, including thirteen tries – we scored thirty points and only three tries. That, to me, says more than anything else that something is wrong somewhere, whether in the coaching or in the players’ heads. Two years ago, we wouldn’t have conceded half that number of points. (Forty-five, actually: I looked it up. So, slightly more than half but we scored forty-six: beat Saints by a point, drew with Bath.)
It’s not the fact of the defeats that gets me—Northampton and Bath were last season’s finalists, after all—it’s the manner of them that I find so depressing.
I should admit here that something has been bugging me for the last couple of seasons: the constant banging on about “physicality”. Not that I disapprove of physicality: I love big hits and collisions. It’s just that there’s more to the game than big hits and dominant tackles. It would be nice to hear discussions of hitting gaps, cutting lines, avoiding being hit…
Maybe I’m being unfair and not hearing what’s being said but it just feels that all the emphasis on how we play is about being “physical”. I fear that this attitude had left us standing still whilst other teams have progressed and, even worse, figured us out. Dare we ask if we’re seeing the effects of Forsh’s departure?
Also, could this apparent emphasis on hitting harder than everyone else be related to the inordinate number of injuries that we seem to suffer? Or are we just unlucky?
It’s not that we can’t play expansively—we’ve seen several examples already this season—it’s just that it’s a rarity and, too often, ends with a dropped ball or the ball carrier isolated.
Maybe I’m just feeling the effects of two particularly galling stuffings, but it feels as if we’re treading water while everyone else is on jet skis. Sometimes, it feels as if we’ve been stuck in a perpetual “year zero” ever since Dimes returned to take over the reins way back when.
We’ve got a few weeks away from the Premiership now. Maybe we can get the likes of Bev, Sharkey, WillGriff and Raffi back. Give them a couple of games in the Prem Cup and see if we can’t come out of this the way we came out of the Six Nations break last March.
It’s taken me long enough to write this much. I really wanted to just forget it this week, but I decided that I needed to address the way I was feeling, to let it go, to remind myself that there are more important things in the world—not many, but some 😉 so I’m not going to try to deconstruct it any more, and I’ll just publish what I’ve got.
I doubt I’ll get to see the Doncaster game, so Caldy will be the first chance to see where we’re at. I hope the the likes of Gus, RDP and Carps, who’ve played all six games so far, will be given a deserved rest, alongside SiMac, Ernie and Hyron who’ve played five.
I suspect that Nye is going to miss a few PRC games, so let’s hope Raffi can get some match time in before the resumption of the Premiership. Let’s give Tom Curtis some meaningful game time, and I’d like to see guys like Woodman, Ene, Ma’asi-White and Joe Bedlow given a go.
Despite the last couple of weeks, I don’t believe we’re in a crisis.
Yet.
an old grey dog 