A week is a long time in rugby
By Carnegiette1
February 17 2013
A week is a long time in Politics…… it’s even longer in Rugby, particularly if you’re a Carnegie Fan. We arrived at Donny on a spring-like day, and decided to partake in a small glass of Vino , meeting up with fellow supporters/victims in the bar. Pre-match banter was of a good standard, and confidence after last week’s game was understandably high. The niggling doubts in my head that a/ I had never seen Leeds win at Donny b/ I had forgotten my lemonhead hat and c/ I had seen a single magpie on Thursday, were pushed to the back of my mind as I defended my position that I too would pick Clegg ahead of Ford. I felt certain that I (&Diccon) would be vindicated but it was not to be.
Donny started strongly with a try from Keating which was duly converted after just 2 minutes – our only input into the game so far had been a knock-on, and we soon we found ourselves 10 points behind when Lennard kicked a penalty. Our performance could be summed up by missing touch when we had the ball, losing our lineouts if we did make touch, and poor passing. Donny were much more up for it than we were and although they weren’t doing anything too special they were doing the basics well and keeping hold of the ball.
Soon we were 13-0 behind after another Lennard penalty, and we were all wondering which team it was who were battling against relegation. Those of us on Twitter, were suffering from a bad case of “Twitter Tourettes”. Donny’s prop Davies saw yellow, Clegg kicked the penalty and we were on the board 13-3. However Donny kicked another penalty to make it 16-3, and worse was to come as Nilsen was also sent for his customary 10 minute rest, and Lennard scored & converted a try. 23-3 h/t.
Debate at half time centred around whether Diccon was delivering one of his legendary de-motivating half-time team talks , however the consensus was that whatever he said , we couldn’t possibly play any worse. We did come out in the second half with much more intent, Walker made a break, then a brilliant bit of individual skill and strength saw Dave Doherty score a try which Clegg converted but only after the ball had hit the uprights. 23-10 and we were slowly getting into the game. Our scrum was performing well, though the lineout was still inconsistent. Sir was also having the kind of game where only he understood the decisions he was making.
Donny by now had given up all pretence of putting the ball into the scrum straight, but Leeds were struggling to convert the pressure into points. We had made our customary mass changes, but time was running out when finally we got a penalty try. 23-17 – we were now in bonus point territory- though not the bonus point we had been expecting before the game. With 4 minutes plus lengthy stoppage time left, all was still to play for. Donny were timewasting at every opportunity, we won another penalty in our own half, Clegg again missed touch. Then a moment of excitement, Currie charged down a Donny kick and set off (quite slowly) towards the try line, yelled on by the Leeds faithful. If only it had been Doc! However all was in vain as the touch judge making his only meaningful input in the game pulled us back for a knock on. A Donny penalty could have denied us the losing bp, but it was missed, Stevie McColl attempted to run it, but was bundled into touch. Game over.
Disappointing in the extreme – after last week, we expected a lot better than this. Donny are not world beaters, and didn’t score a point in the 2nd half, but they are fighting for Championship survival – and it showed. All the Leeds players AND coaches need to take a long look at themselves because it’s a team game, and today the team performance was not good enough.
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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013:03:04:05:41:53 by Wildwillie .
The only positive I can see is, it is these times that make Carnegie wins way more exquisite and memorable than normal!
Who remembers that day at the Madejski??
Zandra YaPoI
YaPoI - Yorkshire and Proud of It
'proficiscor in una'
So as I am now full of Marmite rather than beer, I'll share my thoughts.
It should've been the second easiest job in the world to coach and motivate this team after last week's performance. The easiest job would be coaching and motivating a team after a cricket score defeat - think Newcastle away.
Now, even my mother could've told you that a team at the bottom of the table would put in a 100% effort over their local neighbours who have aspirations to eat at the elite's table. So why did our team not perform?
I believe the (use your swear word of choice) awful performance was down to (use your swear word of choice) poor coaching and management. And it's about time Diccon Edwards wakes up to this and does something about it. I was tempted to add his team - but I'd thought he'd be leading them in some way too.
So why did the team go from near heroes to zeroes in six days? I can't believe the team were arrogant enough to believe they just needed to turn up to get the win. An involuntary reaction to Ford being dropped? A match day squadful of loanees, who will be plying their trade at the top table when they go back to their clubs, who probably couldn't give a monkey's about the club who aren't paying much of their wages (not sure how this works in rugby). Two more things under the ownership of Edwards - assuming he is 100% accountable for picking the match day players.
Given this is the first time I've had a pop at the management, at anything aside from this season's away days/pitch debacle, it shows how hacked off I am. The only positive from yesterday was a deserved win for Doncaster that, I hope, will be galvanised by this performance and avoid the drop.
I had a really great birthday yesterday apart from bewteen 2.30 to 4.30.
Please can Doncaaster play like that each week until the end of the season as we need them to stay up as it is a great day out that is until Leeds came on to the field.
COME ON LEEDS.
We've been through it all together.
Lets hope for a backlash against the pirates.
Quote:Zandra LaPoI
Who remembers that day at the Madejski??
Not sure any of us who were there will ever forget that, arguably Leeds best performance ever, alongside the Cup win. It started with Stavros Flatley, and fortunately got better and better. Sadly, we are a long way from those dizzy heights at the moment.
Having said that, we did little to help ourselves. wayward kicking, 15 meter passes, dropped balls.... I would bet the video on Monday was not enjoyed at all,but I hope that there is a positive in that lessons have been learned.
If a player can't motivate themselves to play well against a bottom of the league side, what hope do we have?
I'm not suggesting that the management aren't partly (or even largely) to blame, but it surely isn't their game plan to have men yellow carded week after week, is it?
Suffering on the Leeds and Yorkshire roller-coaster since 2001
Professional Rugby players have to be accountable for how they play.
Your comment abou the yellow cards sums it up perfectly for me