What do you think? You can have your say by posting below.
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.

I am concerned about Quins' recent performances and I would like to air those concerns. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to do that on this board because the debate is always hijacked by the latest knee jerk "sack X" campaign, meaning you get distracted by all the loony rantings before you can say what you actually think. So, I'm going to start fresh and just stick down how I see it. Er, it might go on for a while. Here we go.

Quins are on a downward spiral at the moment and I don't like it. Why has it happened?

Are we missing Deano?

It might seem obvious that we are, but if this is the key difference from last season what does that mean - what did Deano bring that has now gone? It is widely accepted that Deano was not a hands on coach. I don't know the details here - as I understand it "he didn't organise drills" but that could still have left him with plenty of input via video analysis etc. But let's assume that he wasn't a tactician, but that his most important role was as a leader. That would seem to make sense to me. He is obviously an inspirational character, knows the game inside out, and you can imagine him being the Brian Clough of Quins. (Sorry about the soccer reference, but at least it is from back when soccer was a worthwhile game and I used to enjoy it. Anyone else seen "The Damned United"? Really good sports film - I recommend it.) For the uninitiated, Clough led both Derby County and Notts Forest from nowhere to the old First Division title, and then won two European Cups with Forest. He did it with largely unheralded players and not only that, but also those who played for him could never actually say what he did. They just knew they would "run through walls for him". If Quins had that, and have now lost it, their poor recent form would be no surprise, even with everything else exactly as it was. Of course, if you take the view that players these days are just robots and must perform to the height of their abilities simply because they are paid to, then this will make no sense to you.

On the other hand, is it Deano's fault?

This comes down to two things: B****g*** and changes to the squad. B****g*** has been laid at Deano's door, and some people think the awful shame of it is hanging round the club like some ghost of rugby past. Personally, I don't believe in ghosts. In the real world, changes to the squad, which Deano oversaw before he left, might be more of a chain around the team's neck. In the most recent phase of the club's history Quins have not splashed the cash on a host of expensive international stars, and I think most supporters have been thrilled to see their club be the one to find likes of Easter, Monye, Strettle, Brown, Guest, Ross, Robson, Robshaw etc. Even so, most seasons have seen some experienced, if not always world class talent join us. Volley, Merthens, Abbot, Botha, Evans, DWB, Tiesi were all, more or less, good signings. Nobody like that came in 2009 though. The players who have arrived have all done well, all showed promise, but the question is whether the overall balance of the squad has been maintained. Even a slight slip in strength in depth is enough to make a big difference in this league. It has been ridiculously tight among the top six both of the last two seasons. Again, you can say - of course the squad isn't as good - we are playing rubbish, but then I thought it was all down to Deano's Churchill-like qualities. Hmm, complicated isn't it? And if the squad isn't as good, why not? Did Deano lose his touch? Did he not have time to close the deals he wanted to before he went? Did the whiff of scandal put some people off? If it was any of those things, all we can do is hope that Conor O'Shea can turn the tide and rebuild. Of course the other possibility is the ghost again. BG hit the bank balance, and maybe we couldn't afford the players we would have liked to sign. If that was the problem, will it improve any time soon? We can only hope so, because the current direction leads to the Championship at some point.

Is it all John Kingston's fault?

Can't really avoid this one, and nor do I want to, I just want to consider it rationally. So, yes the squad might not be quite so good, but there are still plenty of players there who I rate highly and they are not producing the performances I expect. JK is "in charge" this season, so yes, there is a good argument that he is the problem. But let's just step back. Before ditching him it makes sense to consider what we are getting rid of. After all, JK has been around in good times as well as bad. Things seemed to be going fine over the last three seasons with him as head coach. As I see it there are various ways to interpret this. Firstly, he is good for nothing and others have been compensating for his rubbish coaching. So, who was that then? The other coaches - they are still there, can't be. Deano? Well, he wasn't a coach, so he can't have filled that gap, but if you buy into the leadership theory, then it could be that the players have been getting by on their own, with all cack coaches, and still playing great because they loved DR so much. Hmmm. Or maybe it is that JK is a perfectly good coach but Deano's leadership was required as well. The other key part of the Brian Clough story is that, inspirational and famously big-headed leader that he was, he was nothing without his right hand man Peter Taylor. Now I don't want to take the analogy too far, and I'm not suggesting that Richards and Kingston were as inseparable a team as Clough and Taylor, but I do think it is perfectly sensible to think they were both important parts of Quins rise up to the heights of last year. And if that is true, then what good will it do to dump Kingston as well, just when Deano's replacement is about to arrive?

What about the players?

If there was any BG effect then the most likely symptom would have been the players all wanting to jump ship, either because they didn't want to stay without Deano or because they just couldn't take the shame of being employed by the evil Harlequin FC. This seemed to be a serious possibility a few weeks ago with all the transfer talk surrounding long-time Quins, but that seems to have subsided and even several players who were touted as being out the door have now re-signed. Even so, the possibility that there was a longish period of uncertainty cannot be discounted and that would surely have had an effect on performances. If this is your favourite theory then you can sleep easy because that should all be behind us now and the good times will be rolling again soon. Indeed, if the team had kicked on after the said re-signings and the good showing against LI, I think you could have dusted off your "I knew it" look and worn it with some justification. Unfortunately that hasn't happened. Of course the blasted Six Nations has been and gone and got in the way (quite good this year isn't it?) so maybe this one still has legs once the squad is back together. Then there is the other side of the leadership coin. OK, so Deano was Clough (here I go again) and JK is Taylor, so where is Dave Mackay, where is John McGovern? A great team needs leaders on the field as well as off it, and if Deano's departure was a loss, did it have to be this big a loss? Do the senior players have the qualities to take up a bit of the leadership slack? Maybe not as much as we could have hoped for. And it won't help at the moment having Skinner injured and Minty off with England. Even so, this is not a variable compared to last season, just something that would have been handy to have in an emergency, so I'll leave it there.

So, what do I think?

Well, I think there has probably been player uncertainty, if not over whether to simply follow Deano out the door as Botha did, then certainly over who would replace him and what direction the club would go in. That should be finished, but we have got ourselves into a hole in the mean time and it is going to take a little while to get out of it. I also think that Deano's leadership is being missed. I think that the club were absolutely right in not rushing to replace him with anyone who happened to be available, but that it is unfortunate that his loss has been felt so keenly so quickly. I'm sure the club were hoping for a bit more of a tailing off "let's do it for Deano" ("let's do it for ourselves"!) effect, but that seems to have worn off, if it ever existed. I don't think JK, or apparently enough of the players, has been able to fill this gap. I don't think that means JK should be sacked though. If he is a good coach who functions perfectly well under a good DOR, but just isn't a good DOR, then keep him. At the same time I'm not entirely sure about the club stipulating that COS must keep all the same coaches. To me it makes sense for him to decide who he wants to work with. But COS might have no problem with JK, and doing a u-turn and sacking him now would simply create a hole that COS has to waste time filling.

What we really need is one thing to be the catalyst to get us going in the right direction again. Hopefully, that will be COS, although I have my concerns about him being enough of a "heavyweight" to manage it alone. He might need a bit of help from Mark Evans' cheque book to give us a kick-start, so I hope there is enough in the bank to land a big fish if it's required. Out of everything I think the signings last summer are the most worrying thing. Yes, younger, less well-know players can come though, but that is always a bit of a gamble, and one that Quins have always mitigated by signing some experience as well. I don't know why they didn't do that last summer and I hope it was a one-off.

OK, that's me done. Anyone else wish to get their worries off their chest without actually joining the lynch mob?

I'll try and add to this when I've had some sleep, but it's worth mentioning that the prevailing economic conditions would've affected our recruitment strategy.

For the 08/09 season we spent a lot of money on Nick Evans & Gonzalo Tiesi. For 09/10 the priority had to be making sure the funds were available to keep what we had, because:

Ugo became a proper international
Danny Care become a proper international
Robshaw won Player of the Year and got capped
JTH won Young Player of the Year and got capped

Plus a bunch of other players had contracts needing to be renewed.

Danny Care's contract for example was not cheap. I don't have specifics, but I do know it was certainly part of the going rate for a top quality international, and given that he won't have been on much before that will have been a big bump.

However, even factoring all that into account we certainly didn't spend up to our limit; Gonzalo Camacho is the only notable signing for 09/10 and the rest were fairly shrewd attempts to find more unsung heroes. Given that recruitment tends to be 90% sorted by the time the 6N ends, I don't think BG would've been a factor.

So the question is this. Was the economic downturn the reason for our lack of spending? We are one of the more financially secure clubs due to having our own (good!) ground and being in a fantastic location. As it turns out, that came in handy with a) having pay off the stand, and b) having to pay off the fine, but only one of those would've been known about a year ago.

Surely the stand wasn't the reason?

I'm probably being simplistic but is it the pack?
I don't think anyone would disagree when I say we're missing Mike Ross big time.
We've also had Olly out all season, Jim out for most of it and he played whilst injured, which doesn't help, Georgie out for a bit because of his red mist moment and Percy hasn't been injury free either.
I'm not saying anything at all against John, James or Lewis but they're all new and just aren't used to winning with Quins yet.
Last season our pack was superb, they were a very tight knit group, both on and off the field and Ceri, Tani and Mike didn't even need to speak to communicate. They know each other through and through. There's no Tani next year either, can't see Mike coming back and God forbid if anything happens to Jonesy as Aston just doesn't get enough game time despite being a good player.
That's my 10p worth.

Babs - I can see your point (and as a prop I fully support the concept that the team obviously stand or fall on our own input). And agree that our tight five have been disrupted this season which cannot help the situation - hate to revert to the old concept that 'forwards win matches and backs dtermine by how much' but it does tend to ring true every now and again,

Let us not forget we also face some revised rules this season - which it appears do us no real favours as we are a lighter weight pack and team as a whole. But they are what they are and we should have adapted or recruited for this.

I resisted the urge to post about the game yesterday until the mist had cleared somewhat. There are many calls for wholesale changes in both management and players. And yes this has also crossed my mind as well. But then use yesterday as an example for comparison. Glos like ourselves are - IMHO - not a team full of superstars, they have the odd key signing (and yes one of these is an international prop) but also have developed a good few youngsters coming threw and benefit from the odd fringe international - given a go but soon disguarded or moved down the pecking order. As importantly they too have suffered a fair amount of injuries in the season. They seem to have experienced their 'dip' earlier in the season and are now back on track (at our expense)....so are wholesale changes absolutley required? I am not so sure. Yes we must ensure we recruit suitably for next year, and lets hope most of this is done already, but it is the intangible elements that we as supporters will never know that can make the diferrence.

We have talented players - form is temporary - and this is not meant to be a rose tinted everything is fine post because it isn't - what we need to hope happens is that COS has soem form of impact to instill new vigor in the squad. They can and should play better. We will survive this year I have no doubt but my word we need to turn one hell of a corner and leaders need to step up and be counted - we don't have NE or DC on the park at present which cannot help, we don't have WS on either but at least he is around to make and impact. Time for the likes of Nev, Ceri, Tiesi to step up (not a pers criticism - just names that I think can lead by example).

Well thats potentially wishful thinking and I am afraid like many others I am looking more to next year than this for any renewed enthusiasm on my part poor form on my part I know but thats just my feeling at present.

And lets be realistic about this game of ours - the injuries yesterday in Cardiff show the potential danger in our beloved game and we must respect those athletes that put their bodies on the line week in week out for us supporters.

This is certainly a refreshly constructive post.

At the game yesterday, several Glos fan I met up with commented on their season - in particular their trip to the Mad Stad where they were on the receiving end of a similar scoreline against LI. They also had a home loss to Wasps which they remembered as particularly painful and a terrible end to the 08/09 season. But they have turned a corner very quickly since Geech started 'advising' Redpath (which has apparently been since December) and all that has been without the sacking of any of the exisiting coaching set up.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that its not the end of the world for Quins, far from it but we do need to bear in mind that we've spent just about all of the season with no DoR. JK is clearly not a DoR and in his defence he never wanted to be but the coaching staff were just fine with Deano at the helm and there is no reason to think that they'd be anything different with COS.

Patience isn't a virtue shared by many sports fans but I do think we should at least give the new DoR a chance before calling for anyones head on a stick.

Does anyone else think that JK's two spell at the top will have fatally damage his standing as a coach with Harlequins players? Whenever he's in charge everything goes wrong?

Right now he is unable to get his message to the players, or they don't trust / believe what he's telling them.

I don't see how this state of affairs will change with a new DOR and hopefully a new Head Coach.

I would suggest the JK needs a fresh start as much as the club does.

HQ - I'd say as a DoR yes as a coach no.

QUIN KONG

Great big hairy arsed 2nd rows, that's what we need. The front row are struggling. The scrum is the keystone.

RESPECT THE REF - NO REF, NO GAME!

So you think all the players can easily separate the man from which ever job he's holding? I don't think it works like that.

But if we accept that your right on that, lets look at his coaching record.

He's been Quins forwards coach for a while now, during that time our forward play has been our weakness.

As head coach last season we "over achieved". But how much of that is down to the playing style that Andy Friend brought in and was suited the rule changes. Towards the end of the season when other teams had adjusted to us and the new rules we slipped. That slip has continued this season and turned into free fall.

So I dispute that fact that he's been a great coach.

But that is secondary to the fact that the man is now, sadly, associated with failure, what ever hat he's wearing at the time.

... I presume the job of the new DOoR is address all the issues raised in this thread.
One issue overlooked is the continuing improvement in the quality of the opposition - we have stood still and indeed gone backwards in the strength and depth of our raw material - our players.
Other clubs in the Prem have been more successful in the use/development of their squads and the management of their squads.
Whilst its not wrong to question the overall team and its management, the combination of improvements elsewhere and our emotional burden, plus the lack of leadership has made a major contribution to our poor performance.
Babs is quite right IMHO - re losing MR. Any team is a fine balance and we don't have any balance in the absence of our key players .
however, its not unique to us - look at Wasps last year.
however, we do seem to be weaker when it comes to all basic values in the absence of Minty and co
It merely emphasises the job that CoS has to do.

on on quins

I started to read the thread regarding the JK poll and then promptly stopped. What a waste of time that thread is.

JK has not done a good job of steadying the ship in troubled times. However, he didn't want tobe top man at Quins, after Deano left, the position was thrust upon him and he (along with the other coaches) has done his best.
JK ha proved in the past that he IS an excellent head coach, but he 'possibly' needs someone above him to be the bad cop to his good? A coach needs to be the 'go to' man between the players and the DoR. At the moment the line is blurred and things aren't working.
It was obvious from the Skinner interview a few weeks back, that he as captain was not happy at some of the effort being put in from certain quarters.

Also, as Babs pointed out, players who left and have had limited gamess this season has meant that continuity in the pack has gone - although I would also point out that Botha leaving just as he was really starting to show his best form couldn't have helped.

So who is to blame? Well, firstly it has to be Deano for making a very stupid decision. After that, all the talk of taking time to pick the right man for the job was a an absolute load of junk!!! Forgetting McGeechan (who we knew didn't want a long term contract), there were lots of very talented DoR's about who were interested in the job.
The thing that struck me when COS got interviewed after being confirmed as DoR, was that he stated something along the lines of; When Harlequins approached me. If that one line is true, then Quins took the cheap option (by waiting for March instead ofpaying of another DoR's contract).

So all in all,I blame Mark Evansand Dean Richards for this mess. At least JK knows his limitations.

I thought it was such a good posting I decided to make it an article

I would suspect on the economic front we have had several issues:-

1). Whopping great fine. I suspect that the impact of this has been somewhat offset losing Mike Ross (tightheads are never cheap, especially good ones) and Dean Richards' salaries, but it will have impacted.

2). Building the South Stand - one hopes that unlike say, Millwall or Southampton football clubs, the cost of building a decent stadium is not selling/offloading our best players to the detriment of the playing side of things.

3). The improvement of "cheap" players like Care, Robshaw et al.

4). The downturn. No doubt with credit harder to get, investing in a damaged Quins may seem less like a good punt for a bank (although we've managed to keep/add to sponsors).

By Quin Like Flint
February 14 2010
I am concerned about Quins' recent performances and I would like to air those concerns. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to do that on this board because the debate is always hijacked by the latest knee jerk "sack X" campaign, meaning you get distracted by all the loony rantings before you can say what you actually think. So, I'm going to start fresh and just stick down how I see it. Er, it might go on for a while. Here we go.

So you write a lengthy post under the guise of an article, some good bits and some debateble, of such length because others have a contrary view. However naive or radical the opposite view may be and however it is expressed it is valid.So i disagree with your intro.

But i agree with the overall theme in that are lots of reasons that can be held responsible for the demise of our form.Our player recruitment is poor. The coaching is obviously poor. The leadership is obviously poor. Current experienced players are not 100% on form. Nick Evans has only just started playing.

There you go, only 55 words.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010:02:14:11:55:40 by kevin.

Mark Evans wants to succeed. If he took the cheap option it's because the money wasn't there for more or was needed elsewhere.

kevin, prof made it an article - it was originally just another (excellent) forum post.

BRW:

Quote:

1). Whopping great fine. I suspect that the impact of this has been somewhat offset losing Mike Ross (tightheads are never cheap, especially good ones) and Dean Richards' salaries, but it will have impacted.

The funny thing is we were offering a lot of money to certain tightheads whilst Rossy's contract was being argued over. We don't appear to have spent that money elsewhere!

A post which insults other people and their points of view in its opening paragraph gets pinned up as an article?

Nice one

Shame, because most of the rest of the article read quite well.

"insults other people and their points of view"

No it doesn't, it just disagrees with some views and the way they are expressed, I know emotions are running high but I think some people are being a bit sensitive

"loony rantings"

I see

It isn't exactly insulting other people is it?

depends whether they appreciate being referred to as a lunatic

oh well

It should have remained a post. No more than that.IMHO of course.

Big difference between mentioning "loony rantings" and calling people lunatics. Only postings not people were mentioned

Great post QLF, I agree with alot of what you've said but it does appear to me that John Kingston has to shoulder the responsibility for a lot of whats gone wrong this season. For example the subs against Glos at home last weekend - what was he thinking!! We badly needed a win for confidence and he single handedly pi$$ed it away.

Aside from that I agree with Babs, I think the pack has been the biggest problem this year. Losing 2 of your first choice front row is going to have a massive impact and unfortunately some of the guys who've come in in the front row haven't been up to scratch.

Jammy Git, we may have been looking to sign a tighthead and had money to do it but i'd have thought the huge fine must have had a huge effect

Quote:

The Prof
Big difference between mentioning "loony rantings" and calling people lunatics. Only postings not people were mentioned

oh purleeeeeeeeeeeeease

So you don't agree, hey ho - what do you think of the points discussed rather than a sentence at the beginning?

Moving on, I am cocerned about the immediate future in terms of Ticket Sales, Merchandising etc. Who among us is not thinking long and hard about the cost of a ST for next year as opposed to pay as you go? To put bums on seats and sell merchandise it helps greatly if you have a winning team at least. The attendance for Saints will be interesting. I have a horrible feeling the oppo will come in their hordes expecting to see their team inflict a drubbing and I'm not sure how many of our occasional fans will make the trip. All this becomes a spiral and a self fulfilling prophesy if we don't have a break soon. Always a Quin, of course, but you spend more when the feelgood factor is more in evidence.

Try,Try and Try again....!

As I said above, I thought the rest of the article rather good. I presume when I write a similar one about why Kingston should be fired you will also post it as an article?

If it's well thought out rather than just being a personal attack I might

Yes, fair play, the first paragraph isn't very good and was written in annoyance. I don't mind if it is removed, but I don't know how to do that in an article. To clarify, I wasn't criticising anyone's point of view, just the practice of dismissing debate if it doesn't include a call for someone to be sacked.

I look forward to seeing it up in lights then

Scamble - I presume you aren't suggesting that what I wrote was "about why John Kingston should not be fired"? Only it sounds a bit like you are.

Scamble - this article considers the role of JK in the current problems

I'm only teasing chaps

mind you, I still think he should go

Trying to put our current malaise into perspective I suppose you need to consider all the contributory factors (all of which have been metioned here) and consider which ones have had a major effect on performance.

1. BG and losing Deano.
2. Tactical leadership from JK, his coaching staff and the game plan.
3. The players and their ability to implement the game plan.
4. Losing players to international callups.
5. Strategic leadership from ME.
6. Is our front 5 competitive enough?

and I suppose one factor we have not considered is the opposition. We almost take it as read that we should beat all and sundry but the 'enemy' always have the final say on how we perform.

So what? Well 1 or all of these factors can be overcome either by time or action. I am not jumping the sinking ship (nor would I in a worst case scenario) patience is a virtue. Keep your head whilst all about you are losing theirs!

Quote:

The Prof
Jammy Git, we may have been looking to sign a tighthead and had money to do it but i'd have thought the huge fine must have had a huge effect

They must have been psychic then - the huge fine was announced 6months after...

Also having Dean resigning mucked up recruitment as he used to do all of it - some of it with no knowledge of the coaches!

Sure, but you know as well as I do that most recruitment for the next season is done by the end of the 6N...

Fair point but the BG thing was happening before the fine was eventually fixed and Dean resigned so that wouldn't have helped things

Sure, but it does seem like we made a conscious decision to not spend that money before the initial hearing. It's curious.

The up side of that is that it means the fine didn't kill us!

Quote:

Blue Dragoon
Trying to put our current malaise into perspective I suppose you need to consider all the contributory factors (all of which have been metioned here) and consider which ones have had a major effect on performance.
1. BG and losing Deano.
2. Tactical leadership from JK, his coaching staff and the game plan.
3. The players and their ability to implement the game plan.
4. Losing players to international callups.
5. Strategic leadership from ME.
6. Is our front 5 competitive enough?

and I suppose one factor we have not considered is the opposition. We almost take it as read that we should beat all and sundry but the 'enemy' always have the final say on how we perform.

So what? Well 1 or all of these factors can be overcome either by time or action. I am not jumping the sinking ship (nor would I in a worst case scenario) patience is a virtue. Keep your head whilst all about you are losing theirs!

If you can keep your head whilst all about you are losing theirs.....then they probably know something you don't!

And, didn't what we saved on not paying Deano cover some of the fine?

Try,Try and Try again....!

Like it! Gives me an idea for an OT.

any of the italian front 5 available for signing? I know we Anglo Saxons take the mickey out of the Italian sense of courage and character but they've done themselves proud today. I'll have a pint of whatever they've been drinking...

Phew, thank God that's over!

Well done to Italy, at least they played with a positive attitude

Has anyone considered that losing Andy Friend has cost us as well?

To lose both DOR and Head Coach with in a season, and neither of them have been replaced has to have a big effect.

To my mind, we would have bounced back a lot better from the loss of Deano if Andy Friend had still been head coach.

But I think Deano over promoted JK to Head Coach and the rest is history.

I thought Friend was replaced by Collin Osborne, and we did did even better than the season before.

Personally I reckon the biggest factor in our demise is simply the loss of Deano, but I do think there are several factors, all of which have been mentioned on the thread.

I thought Colin Osbourne was promoted from within, hence no replacement for Friend, or our coaching panel was thinned out.

whatever the reasons, of which a few probably contribute to our lack of competitiveness this season, somethings have to change soon - how many times have we seen Quins win at the Stoop this season - only a couple I think and compared to last season, what a downturn! - we need Conor to inject a winning mentality back into the squad along with a few important signings and I sincerely hope he can pull it off!

Sadly I don't think we'll see much in the way of new signings. What with the fine, legal costs and a significant drop in attendances I can't see us having the finances for any big name signings.

I agree with Babs, we have hardly any platform in the scrum this season, losing Botha, Mike and Olly & Mr Robson I think has really hurt us. This was so obvious yesterday.

As for coaches, I beleive we miss Deano for his inspiration/leadership and game plan, I'm not sitting here blaming JK or coaching in general as I think there are a mixture of things effecting us not just one single thing. I hope COS can turn this around, I'm not happy with things and wish JK could have sorted it earlier but I just don't think replacing him now is the solution, let COS make the decision when he gets here.

I'm not saying the scrum is not a factor but we had a comfortably better scrum than Sale and still lost 3 times!

Good point QP.

I think the argument that a lot of our problems are connected to the changes in the pack carries a lot of weight (if you'll forgive the pun). I didn't go to Kingsholm (fortunately) but from what little I saw on the TV our tackling was woeful again. the week before as the stats clearly show we were poor in this department and our rucking was awful. This partly reflects the fact that we were missing our entire first choice back row but also reflects the loss of Botha and Rossy. I am quite sure that the club did try to replace Rossy and accept that good tight heads are a rare breed indeed. I also think that Andress has the potential to become one.

So, in the light of this, the constructive question is surely "what else can we do given that we are where we are?"

This is where I do feel that the coaches need to put their hands up and admit that they need to change things. I think the big mistake is that we are trying to play essentially the same game plan as last year when we have a team with different talents. So, I thin we need to do three things:

1) Play an even less structured game. Lets exploit the spontaneity of NEv and Danny (when we get him back) and not try to depend on a weakened set piece as much;

2) Run the ball more and kick it less. Our best performances have come when we have kept the ball in hand. Lets exploit the pace of players like Lowe and Stretts and see if we can get more out of them; and

3) Change the balance of the defence. Like all teams we play a mixture of blitz and drift but we play more of the latter - I think we should change to play more of the former.

So anyway that’s my attempt at some constructive suggestions on how to get the team moving forward again. I’d be interested in other people’s views on this.

We, and everyone else in the game, have got to work out a way of reducing the kicking which I am certain is the percentage play as they are unwilling to get turned over in the tackle, or penalised. Breakdown Laws/Interpretation by Referees are at the heart of this issue. It ain't rocket science so lets show some invention, guys!

Try,Try and Try again....!

Seems fine in the S14. Refs are seriously hot on the "release the tackled player", everyone knows what to expect, attacking teams are suitable empowered and people are playing rugby again.

I don't expect the 6N to follow suit despite allegedly being reffed the same; refs are not so eager to blow up and players have been playing under a different edict all season up to this point.

But it can work. The S14 has already proved that.

I concur. The problem is that there are 2 levels of Rules of the Game. The actuals Laws themselves and then the officials "interpretation of them". The Officials have to take some of the blame for all the kicking going on, methinks?

Try,Try and Try again....!