Nothing bonnie to write home about

The music on my phone is on shuffle and when I plonked myself in my seat on the train home from London and bunged the earplugs in my ears this is the first thing I heard: “Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits. Raised on a diet of broken biscuits, oh we don't look the same as you, we don't do the things you do, but we live around here too.” Which is pretty apt. It’s Pulp for those of you who don’t recognise it.

And if Yorkshire had stopped London Scottish slowing our game down from our mis-shapes and mistakes and more unfits than misfits they’d won a match they really shouldn’t have lost.

It was a bright, cold, very blustery day and the wind played its part in the match – that was obvious from kick-off when the wind held up the Scottish kick so that it went barely five yards not the required ten. Yorkshire were playing with the wind and could make use of the conditions to build a decent lead. And while Yorkshire Carnegie were 0-8 up at half-time with a penalty from Leonard and try from Lucock (playing what was in front of him and kicking into a space to collect the ball to score), there were missed opportunities from mistakes, poor decision making by not taking more advantage of Scottish being down to 14 and the age old problem of poor discipline that stopped many attacking opportunities and the chance of a bigger lead at half time.

Yorkshire Carnegie spent periods of the half defending, either from that lack of discipline or from poor handling and bizarrely kicking into the wind, stopping Scottish scoring on a number of occasions by running turnover ball out from close to or deep in the in-goal area.

The wind dropped somewhat during the second half, but it was still blowing a gale, so we were playing slightly better conditions than Scottish had previously enjoyed. This time there was a different error at the kick-off; Leonard hoofed the ball to the opposition for the ref. to deem that Yorkshire had blocked play. I am still flummoxed by this – Chris Walker was ahead of the chasing pack but some ten yards from the player going to catch the ball and there was daylight between him and the rest of the Carnegie players. This is not to say the reffing was poor; on the whole it wasn’t, but he did keep missing the total lack of binding by the Scottish blindside props.

Both sides exchanged converted tries, Scottish’s from a penalty and Yorkshire’s from a missed tackle. But then the penalty count started to rack up and Myerscough was binned. And Yorkshire paid for it with two tries being scored against them that allowed Scottish to take the lead.

Replacements took place and sometime after Scottish scored their fourth try. This try should not’ve been scored for two reasons; there was an obvious block on a tackler that the ref either ignored or didn’t see which resulted in the Yorkshire players stopping play for a split second so convinced, as we all were, it’d be called which meant they were out of position to stop the score when it wasn’t.

Some more replacements took place; we double checked and we’re pretty sure that Yorkshire did have 16 on the pitch for a while as Vickerman took some time to come off after Goss went on. The official marshalling the replacements seemed confused but it all got sorted when Nilsen went on for Jack Walker.

Bainbridge scored following a kick to touch after a long period of Yorkshire attacking play with long periods of advantage. Leonard landed the conversion that looked like it was going to miss but the wind grabbed the ball and, seemingly, placed it rather than blew it between the uprights.

With a couple of minutes left to play, Yorkshire were in their own half enjoying phase after phase of attack that ended with another handling mistake. So it ended 26-22 with a losing bonus point but it could have and should have been so much more.

My man of the match goes to Jack Walker for coping well with his throwing in the strong wind, putting his body on the line and taking the ball forward– breaking the gain line for Lucock’s first try, and continuously giving instructions to his team (which was, no doubt, taken by the wind rather than reaching the desired ears).

Referring to my comment about unfit; Doc - he pulled up a few times. He was looking for support when he should have pinned his ears back and ran away from the attack; he would’ve done up to 12 months ago. Goss is probably as quick as Doc is now and he can tackle; he’s defended well in recent weeks and he’s a safe pair of hands. I think he should be starting. I’m not sure Vickerman is totally recovered from his injury; first big hit on Myerscough and he was holding his shoulder, being attended to by the doc. in breaks of play and did so until he came off; Chris Jones was not on long enough to make an impression but he needs match time having not played for so long.

That match was there to be won. We did not play as well as we did for an hour against Worcester so for the travelling fans, who ensured the background drone of bagpipes all match, it was a mixture of frustration and disappointment. We are getting better. I was interested to hear Tommy say in his post-match interview that he’s done his job to pick the players up and now they need to use their brains (or words to that effect). Wise heads and stopping the penalty count (whenever was it not?) and we will be back to winning ways. I can’t see that happening next week at Bristol – if we’d won at London Scottish then I’d said we will. However, stranger things happen at sea.

There’s a line in that Pulp song that goes; “They think they've got us beat, but revenge is going to be so sweet. We're making a move, we're making it now, we're coming out of the side-lines.” And so we might but not top four – we’re 16 points adrift. And what’s annoying is, apart from Bristol stuffing us at HC, we could’ve so easily beaten the rest of the top four – we’ve had the lead in the matches and given it away.

A quick line on Glyn Hughes; everyone at the club might be tight lipped about this but have you seen an ex-player sit with management and spend time with the players during a match and eat with them after? No, me neither.