By Whaley Shark
February 20 2011

As I write this, on the train down to London on Sunday afternoon, Leeds are about half way through their game at Saracens and, once that’s over, we’re heading into the final third of the Premiership season- I think I can safely assume we will have no interest in the playoffs. Gazing into a cup of Richard Branson’s tea (bloody awful since you ask), it seems a suitable time to reflect on what the next three months may have in store for us?

After our “unbeaten in 2011” start to the year, which was technically correct but didn’t really stand too much scrutiny once we stopped beating up Spaniards and got back to the Premiership grind, we have perhaps had something of a reality check. No points in the last two games isn’t great and, more disturbingly to my mind, we seem never to have really been in a position to compete. Against both Bath and Quins, we have gone a long way behind and been unable to close the gap, even to scrape a losing bonus point. We also seem to lack a cutting edge, and to have struggled to beat Premiership defences.

My sense is that we are trapped in quite a tough place at the moment. The squad doesn’t have the depth to cope with the present number of injuries and international call-ups. Given recent history, one must wonder whether the squad is polarised into Brewer players and PSA/Kingsley players? Even if it’s subconscious, that could be quite divisive. Add in a few rumours about Fearns, Eifion and Wihongi, among others, note both 19 players out of contract at the end of the season and Steve Diamond’s reputed remarks about 15 leaving, and it’s clear we have a far from steady ship at the moment. That in no way is a criticism of the current coaches or management- they’ve only been around a few weeks and you don’t clean house on this scale in a hurry. However, it does mean that we can’t look forward to the next three months with particular enthusiasm and, realistically, our minimum requirement each week must be “Do no worse than Leeds”.

So what would I like to see from now to the end of the season? Well, although we have a cushion over Leeds and Falcons, it’s not as comfortable as it looks. Both of them have games in hand although, even if they win them all, they won’t overtake us. So there is a gap; it just might not be a very big one. Our priority, in my view, must be to scrap for every league point until we are mathematically safe. We can leave “blooding the youngsters” and “building for next season” until then. That means putting out a team each week which is prepared to die for the shirt. We have seen some individual examples of that in the last two games, but hopefully, we’ll see more of it as some of the injured players recover, the Six Nations players come back, and individual players’ futures are resolved. We need to get back to the unforgiving defence of the early season- a lack of cutting edge is OK, so long as you don’t leak two or three tries per game- after all, a 0-0 draw (I played in one once) is worth 2 points.  So for the time being, let’s back the team and the management. It’s unlikely to be pretty but, to coin a phrase, we’re all in this together (I’m sure I heard that somewhere else recently?). My prediction for Friday- Sale 3, Tigers 0, and I'll be absolutely delighted if we manage that!