Q: I’m intrigued to know what it is you say to the team at half time every match?

DR: [Laughing] I think one of the things you have to consider is that, although there are a lot of full time players in this division, not all of them are, which is different to Harlequins where everyone is full time. What we’re finding is, with sixty minutes to go, other sides are starting to drop off a little bit and we keep the intensity up. So although we’re not burying sides in the first forty minutes, we’re not putting them away and getting the three or four tries that we really want, we’re actually putting a lot of hard work in and preparing for the second half. We really want to be putting a lot more pressure on these sides then we are at the moment, we want to start scoring a lot more tries up to the 45-50 minute mark. But it’s very difficult, because these sides are coming out and it’s their cup final. For any cup final any side can always give sixty minutes of intense and passionate rugby played with a heart and if they’re in with a sniff after sixty minutes it then becomes even more difficult for us as we found out up at Otley. But saying that, our boys are reasonably fit, Dave Bell has done a great job in getting the boys into condition, and luckily, over the last five games, after sixty minutes we’ve just started to pull away. I think fitness levels are very important.

Q: Over the first four or five matches and you’ve gone through most of the squad, are you getting to the stage where your first fifteen or twenty-two are just about in your mind?

DR: I think we’ll have a rough idea after six or seven games as to the quality of each player but it will probably take until December time to work out the best combinations. After December going into January and February it’s about that time when you get far more of a stable side going through to the end of the season. Each club that I’ve been at (which has only been two others [laughs]) it’s been the way I’ve worked. I like to give each player the opportunity to fight their corner and stake their claim to a position and that goes right through until December. After December it’s very difficult to get into the side but people get injured, there are international call ups so from that point of view nothing is set in stone. Everybody will get an opportunity until December I will assure you, but not to the detriment of the team winning.

I’ll give you an idea of what the team goals are: We sit down with the players at the start of each year and we go through the short term goals and the long term goals and then the personal goals of each player. The team goals that have been set by the players is obviously to get back into the Premiership. One of the other goals they have coupled with that is to go unbeaten this year, I think that is very much a tall order when you consider we have to go to places like Exeter and Truro, Bedford for me is the side to beat this year in the first division, I think that will be a very hard game. So I think that is a very, very difficult goal they have set themselves but it is achievable and providing everybody plays to their potential and their ability and puts the training in through the week then we could do it, but it’s a very, very long shot, it really is.

More Q&As will follow shortly.

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