We All Make Mitsakes!

“You Don’t Know What You’re Doing. You Don’t Know What You’re Doing!”

Quite some time ago I raised the issue of how fair Refs tend to be against Gloucester. I’m sure, for the most part, they are 100% opposed to any bias. But what if there is a 50/50 call and you still have those words stinging in your ear? Dickson must have felt like he was on holiday yesterday with The Shed shut. Having watched the game in full again, apart from other things such as the cynical late tackles on 57, I spotted four high tackles on Gloucester players right in front of the ref; he even seemed to warn one of them when he was at the base of a ruck. Did anyone notice that the TMO pointed the crooked put in to the scrum from Chapman but failed to do so the Saints twisty little bugger? Just saying.

Saints played a very cynical game and quite deliberately attacked key players with a purpose to set out and injure, no-one will convince me otherwise. And why will no-one convince me otherwise? Because we had Tigers, Bears and Barff fans saying the same thing at the same time. When Barff fans are on your side after taking a record hammering the night before you know something’s wrong. Even Healey said we should have had a penalty on the 62nd minute……Barff fans AND Healey on our side, have I entered an alternate reality?

Personally I’d like a citing officer to sit down and watch the whole game keeping a very close eye on Ratuniyarawa throughout. In the words of Ben Kay “It’s obviously tactical!” Enough said on that.

I went into the game yesterday thinking that we could take three of the next five games. Saints, Irish & Warriors while probably not Bears. Until Friday night I thought we might struggle at The Rec. But the thought of 3 out of 5 and rising above Irish & Warriors gave me a warm feeling in my slippers; and no I hadn’t pissed myself, though I did check 😉 But since yesterday I’ve been looking at why I thought that. Why did I think we could beat those three teams? We are bottom of the table, surely it’s their right to believe we are there for the taking, not the other way around. We look at the lower end of the table and see juicy, easy wins……To eleven other teams we are that juicy, easy win! So they come to us psychologically buoyed up and very much believing in themselves. Our challenge is to find that genuine belief in ourselves, and there’s no reason we can’t, especially with the magnificent win against Wasps and the performance we put in against Chiefs.

I’m tempted to ask “so where did it all go wrong?” but that would be a misnomer. It didn’t all go wrong. But some bits did, and enough bits did. But, again, we got a lot right also. Six changes to the starting line up will affect team cohesion and I felt some of the sexy off loading we’ve been seeing was missing (although Thorley doing a 270 degree to off load to 57 was nothing short of miraculous) but they’ve had plenty of time to get that right in practise. 57 & Woodward making starts after long layoffs, 36 back for a first start after several weeks away. Missing key players such as Singleton & Harris and with new kid in town, Carreras, out of position on the wing but desperate to prove his credentials and then losing him on the half hour mark; it was a bit of a hotch potch after some stability over the previous couple of games so seeing a list of sexy names on the team sheet wont necessarily transfer to an effective team. It’s no good pretending we haven’t been an unsettled team, we have, especially with the recent departure of Cipriani. But we’re passed that now.

Clearly the key to the loss was that depressing 8 minutes between 52 & 61 where we just left an entire side of the pitch unguarded. Take that out of the equation and you’re potentially looking at a 26-14 result. But we know that didn’t happen so we need to concentrate on that massive gap. Apart from that 8 minutes the defence, I felt, wasn’t as awful as some suggest. 16 phase defence on our line, Saints pushed back from the gain line time & again, there was plenty of good stuff there. Obviously Saints had most of the possession so we did most of the tackling with 161 with Saints trailing on just 101 ( I note Ratuniyarawa made just 6 legal tackles).

Having said that I genuinely feel there is a lack of confidence in the team. I think any of the 2nd to 4th penalty kicks could and should have been kicks to touch. Certainly our pack was far the more powerful. There are those that argue our line out wasn’t at it’s best, well certainly nor was theirs. Simply play it short, we only needed one to work and the game was won. We stole 3 of theirs to them stealing one of ours. We won 8, Saints won 6. But even then we had a golden opportunity with a kick to touch on the 68th minute that 36 missed despite having had a decent day off the tee. So there were plenty of opportunities to have won this.

We keep hearing that phrase “fine margins” and this was another loss to those fine margins. I saw a few “mitsakes” today, certainly, but also I saw a lot of hard graft and, yes, passion. I know some disagree but I believe we have a squad proud to wear the shirt with a lot of youngsters & newbies but have yet to wear it where it matters, in front of a sold out Shed……Their day is yet to come, let’s make it extra special when it does.

And to finish on a lighter note, I was pleased by the reaction to my suggestion that “The Predator” was a suitable nick name for Jordy Reid…..Since then I cannot quite get over the uncanny resemblance between Matt Garvey & Hellboy. I’m led to believe they’ve never been seen in the same room together 😉

Less Than I’d Hoped for!

I was disappointed that we came away from Kingston Park without at least a losing BP. I genuinely believe the lads had earned at least that, especially when you look at so much of the detail.

I don’t want to be harsh on Craig but I have to say he doesn’t have the pace for the 6 shirt and if we had someone with just one or two meters of extra pace we would have been looking at our first try as well as denying Radwan Falcon’s first…….You’re looking at a very different game right there.

Falcon’s second came from what I assume was a misunderstanding between Garvey & Val that left the door wide open. It is what it is and will no doubt be something worked on during the week.

Our set piece has improved so much this season that according to the stats our line out is second only behind Falcons. I can believe that, I think it’s our most improved area and May’s try on 24 minutes came from another excellent line out with rolling maul which it is so good seeing Gloucester make an effective tool once more. I recall Fisher, when asked what he’d like to see most at Gloucester, said “a 40 meter rolling maul against Bath in front of The Shed for a try”! Perhaps that day might be coming.

I’ve seen a lot of criticism of the game as we played it, as well as a lot of positive comments it has to be said. But to be honest, for me, one of Gloucester’s very best bits of rugby in the last couple of seasons has to be the defence we showed at half time when we held up to over 35 phases of attack in our 22 without giving away a penalty before the inevitable happened. But despite the effort of that defence they then defend successfully against that line out drive and it was the cherry on the cake.

For a huge chunk of the game we kept Falcons in check and when they finally got the win they went, briefly, to the top of the table having won 5 from 6 which shows they are a quality side; although they are also one of the teams to benefit from covid points, as are the six teams immediately above us.

So facts have been against us and that’s what we have to live with, but we went to Kingston Park and Falcons knew they’d been in a battle with a team that is growing in quality and clearly has ambition…..if only Polledri had been in receipt of Simpson’s pass!

But in a review of the season so far I’m struggling to understand why heads are being called for. I genuinely like what I’m seeing. As far as I’m concerned we were in a mess, a genuine mess, before covid. Losing game after game and dropping back from a pinnacle that seemed to be a launchpad from the end of 2019. Those of you that have read some of what I write regularly will recall I went on a blitz reporting what was going wrong behind the scenes. The main cause of the problems in my opinion has now gone and we are sailing calmer waters. We have a young and, on paper, inexperienced coaching set-up. We have a huge number of new signings and academy players. We have existing guys that are only just starting to get regular game time. And yet, for me, I’m seeing things at Gloucester I haven’t seen for a good long while. There is a team spirit about the place. All what I hear coming from the back rooms is that the guys want to play for the Shirt and for Skivs.

What I’m seeing that I haven’t seen for so long is cohesion and that is a key to success. I’ve said elsewhere I believe we will be regular top 6, if not top 4 by the end of 2022/23 if we keep the majority of what we currently have. We will be 8th or higher at the end of this season. The improvements are there for all to see. They don’t all happen at once but they can be seen to be happening. Memory is not too distant of a bonus point win v Wasps and putting the fear of God into Chiefs.

And, it has to be said, I don’t know who is spotting for us at the moment, but by crickey they should be given a bonus.