By Ajack
September 30 2002

Are basic skills really improving or are we like the plate balancer, as soon as you get one going again another one starts to wobble? Yes the lineout and the restarts were a huge improvement, but that almost makes it worse. We also had total domination in the scrum and only some unbelievable work from Richard Hill (what a class act he is) stopped this being even more apparent.

So domination in the scrum, superiority in the lineout, domination from the restarts and at a guess 65% possession and with all that we still never looked really threatening, that is worrying.

Okay we were missing two players, but too be honest we are going to be missing two players most weeks, with bans, injuries and internationals two is not a large number and something we should be able to cope with.

Okay lets blame the ref then. Perhaps he didn’t have the best game but he certainly didn’t cost us the game. If you were giving marks out of ten to all the Saints players and the ref, he would easily be in the top half. Having said that with the amount of preparation that now goes into a game surely the referee is part of that and the players should know what to expect.

Archie Brooks certainly had a nightmare but lets not forget that he stood in last year for Daws and looked very comfortable so was that just a one off bad game or was there a fundamental problem in the presentation of ball from the forwards?

My personal opinion is that we are trying to move the game forward in this area, notice how many different players stand in at “scrum half” I believe we are trying to commit less players to any one ruck with the option of someone arriving late to clear from the side giving a clear pick and drive but also trying to leave their players in no mans land, however this certainly didn’t work on Saturday, it will be interesting to see what happens this Saturday.

Finally and IMHO the most worrying, have we moved on? After a good run last year we went to Welford Road, they contested the breakdown and gave us no room in midfield and we looked awful, never mind surely a one off, well yes until Irish did exactly the same in the Powergen, we must have learnt by now, well judging by Saturday no.

Every time this happens Larry drops in the pocket and we look clueless, our passing becomes awful and our attacking options become nil. Given that our coach in an Ex All Black and All Black coach and everyone in the back line is a current or ex international I cannot believe how poor we look, we simply must improve in this area, I find this VERY worrying.

Ah that’s better.