Question: What are the problem areas that you saw in the Trophy game against Sedgley Park?

Andy Friend (AF): Last Saturday was a difficult one, having beaten them by 50 points the week before, in our heads we were always fearful that it could be a game we could switch off in. While we’ve always said for each game each week that we want to have the correct mental approach it has been difficult to always keep the boys right up there. I think that before the game we had the right mentality but scoring two tries in the first eight minutes didn’t help us. We also went into the game with a wide:wide pattern but to date we haven’t been able to do it, we went into the game with the wide:wide pattern that the guys persisted with until half time and that just didn’t allow our forwards to get into the game. So it was a combination of things: the two tries in the first eight minutes made us think it was going to be easy; then the fact that we asked for a wide:wide pattern and they stuck with it and didn’t react to the way they were defending. The Sedgley Park team that came out last Saturday was a different team in the way they defended and what they presented at the tackle to the one we had played the week before and we didn’t react well enough to it. There are no excuses, we just didn’t react to that.

Question: How much can you expect the players to change their tactics themselves during the half?

Andy Friend (AF): That is something we’ve been working very hard on. What we can see leading into the games is a crystal ball image, we perceive as a coaching staff, with some player input, how the opposition is going to play. If we turn up against an opposition and they don’t play that way we need the players to react and at the moment we’re not getting that. At the start of the season we were pretty hot on giving our input, telling the players what to do. Then we sat down as a coaching staff and said that’s not the best thing for the players. We’ve probably gone complete the other way at the moment by not telling them anything until half time to see if they can make that adjustment. We’ve been fortunate in a game like Sedgley Park where we’ve been able to leave that alone until half time and then ask them ‘boys what are you seeing?’. They were actually seeing everything that we were seeing but they didn’t react to it. So it’s a slow process. We want our players to be able to react, especially the play makers – Mehrtens, Vos. We want them to have the support and conviction that whatever they choose to do we will back them in that. They have to react and respond to what they see in a game. It’s a slow process but it’s something that we’ve been doing well with this week.

John Kingston (JK): You’ve pretty much covered it Andy. You might say that when you’ve got players of that magnitude and that experience you might expect them to pick up on these things slightly quicker. I think if you’ve got the confidence to say ‘let’s them fight there way through this and tell us what they think is right and what they think is wrong’ knowing that at half time you can sort it out in three or four minutes anyway, it’s interesting to see how they react and what they try to do to change it during the game. We hadn’t said a word to them last week [Sedgley Park in the Powergen Trophy] and certainly before they’d even sat down there were two players that I could think of that immediately spoke to me, and I am sure others spoke to Andy and Dean, and ‘don’t you think A B C’ and I thought absolutely spot on. The disappointing thing was the fact that they hadn’t actually decided on the field to deal with that but there have been incidents during the season so far when they have done that. If we can get them to start thinking like that, making those decisions on the hoof and to be less programmed it can only be good for the long term betterment of the team.

Question: Do you think the inability to make those decisions to change the game plan on the pitch might be a result of relegation last season where players might be afraid to make those decisions?

JK: I think you’re probably not wrong there. I don’t want to dwell on last season but I do think that last season confidence levels were very low and the starting point this season was very low, they’re bound to be when you’ve failed at something, no matter what you’ve given or how hard you’ve tried, people are bound to suffer a bit from that. When you have won ten games in a row people are confident in the way things are going but it took a little while during that to start to get people to reason and understand why it was that they were winning each week even given the way the pre-season results went against the three premiership sides.

Possibly when you look at someone like Andrew Mehrtens who has come into the group, he’s clearly got enormous experience and must have a massive understanding of the way the game is going. Andrew has said that he doesn’t want to come in and start ripping people up and telling people how things should be done. He’s very much enjoying a new challenge here, we’re really delighted with him, possibly we’d like to put his paw print on things some more but equally it’s the mark of the person that he wants to do it the way Harlequins want to do it rather than come in and try to tell everyone what to do from minute one.

I think Will would not be dissimilar, he’s spent as much time in the last four years that I’ve been at the club being involved in international rugby as he has been involved in club rugby. It can’t be easy when you come from one arena into another and you come back with ideas that work in one arena that might not work in another.

We certainly want to get the players making those decisions, we certainly want them to take on the responsibilities and it’s up to us to support them and get that out of them. I think the confidence is gradually coming as a group and in the leaders, we are not just trying to see who the leaders are but who the second layers of players are who can support the leaders are as well. Having a lot of leaders on the pitch is what makes a good team.

Question: After ten games don’t you have an idea who the natural leaders are and who the motivators should be on the field?

JK: Absolutely, the captain Andre Vos is the leader and we are delighted with the way he has led the side even in adversity. At the moment we have leadership groups who discuss aspects of day to day work which can be to do with the preparation of the week; when we’re going to have a day off; or what we’re going to do at the Christmas party.

We also have a strategy group, that Andy touched on,  on the Friday that is with the key four or five players and we’ll talk to them about the game plan and the way we want to run things so that they are totally in synch. with us before we go in with a faite accomplis to the whole group. In that Friday strategy meeting you’d expect to see Andre Vos, Andrew Mehrtens, Steve So’oialo – the half backs who are playing at the moment, if Ian Vass was playing then he’d be in there; Nick Easter the number eight, the hooker Tani Fuga  - the pivotal positions really.

The Monday meeting is for the leaders on more general leaders, people like Luke Sherriff who has shown fantastic leadership skills on the pitch when he has been playing, he was a wonderful captain of the seconds last season and he has that ability at first team level. Also players like Mel Deane who has got massive respect from the rest of the group, Gavin Duffy and Ceri Jones fall into that category too. So yes, we’ve got a pretty clear view of what each guy is trying to do.

Question: So, half way through the first half when the wheels are coming off  who then makes the decision to change things? Is it individual players or the natural leaders?

JK: Ultimately it’s got to come down to the captain and the half backs to make those decisions. We’ve even got an array of plays that we would go to under those circumstances. In layman’s terms it would be a simplify the thing right down. Do the basics well, do one good thing together with another good thing a bit better and do the basics well and take it from there. If you watch closely you’ll even see the players will stop the game so the team can be pulled in and arrange to do that.

I have to say when you look at last week, the game had  probably got to half an hour before they realised the mess they were in. If those of you who were at the game think back, we were 12-0 up in 10 minutes, the next five minutes followed with us basically looking, quite frankly,  like we could win the game with one arm tied behind out backs, then we made one too many errors in the middle of the park and fair play to Sedgley Park, with the assistance of the referee, kept hold of the ball for 10 minutes, then everyone starts to get cheesed off and everyone starts to play ‘Harlem Globe Trotters’ and half an hour is gone and everyone is starting to go ‘hang on a minute, what’s going on here?’ So, probably we should have hit the button ten minutes before half time, whereas, even though we didn’t run away with it, I thought the performance second half was much more streetwise and we should have probably scored two or three more tries and they got seven points right at the end which sort of twisted the final score quite frankly. But we were much more pragmatic second half.

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