PerryGo – Analysis Paralysis

By PerryGo
November 27 2002

I am lost for words. What do you say? Where can you go for inspiration at a time like this? On the basis of Saturday’s performance, we are back to square one. Quite the worst we’ve seen for a long while. Oh dear…

If you remember last season’s corresponding fixture, Harlequins managed to snatch a draw from the jaws of victory against what I thought was far and away the worst team I’d seen that season, if not for some years.  Saints were dire then.  Abject.  Even their own supporters said so!

Turner-round from last Season?

Until Saturday, I’d have said that we’d done as much or more than any other team (save for Leeds, one would have to concede) to turn things around from last season.  But comparing the two teams, both shorn of their international contingent, you would have to say Northampton showed they had a strength in depth that we did not.  We were slaughtered.  They have improved a great deal more than Harlequins, on that performance.

I suppose the reality is that unless you have the ball you can’t score points.  And, unless you score points when you do have the ball, you can’t win matches. 

So I wonder what the theme of the training will be this week?  (Is ‘training’ the right word?  Autopsy might be better.)  Back to basics I guess.

I’m not sure how, though, at this level, you can address tactical naivety.  How do you explain such a contrast between Saints’ awareness in playing to the conditions and ours?  The conditions were awful, but they were the same for both teams.  You would have thought that it might have been a forward-orientated game and that, under those circumstances, our pack would have had a good chance to dominate.  Isn’t that one of our main strengths?  But no.        

This week must be a coach’s worst nightmare.  What do you build on?  I can’t think of anything.  Do you just put it down to one off-colour game?  Just a bad day at the office, and all will be well when we have a full-strength (or fullest-strength available) side for next weekend? 

Do you give the players a right rollocking, or just write it off and move on?  Answers on a postcard to Mark Evans, c/o The Stoop…  Winner’s prize is a private meeting with the front row to explain where they were going wrong.

Thankfully, in a way, there will be natural changes in selection for the Sarries match simply through the internationals returning.  No need to drop anyone.  Although, who would you have dropped, since there would be few alternative choices, what with the injury situation?

Am I asking too many questions?  I’d rather be writing with the answers, that’s for sure.

So which team will turn up on Saturday?  Oops!  Done it again!  Another question…

Pre-Sarries – Part Two

Now last time I was writing ‘pre-Sarries’ I was praising the performance against Bath, and particularly the defence.  Unfortunately, against Sarries, the wheels came off.  At least we could take heart in the spirited fight back  from 26-3 to lead 29-30 towards the end. 

Nothing comparable on Saturday to take heart in.  I’m not one for saying the team played ‘without heart’ or ‘with no passion’ as some tend to whenever there’s a result like that one.  I think the team care a very great deal. 

Thank goodness it’s a home fixture this weekend, though.  A chance for the supporters to get behind the team and inspire the higher levels of passion (technical term: adrenalin) that will be needed.  

If you look at recent results, for some strange reason there’s a pattern emerging here:

Home v Caerphilly – dire

Home v Bath – good

Away v Saracens – dire

Home v  Wasps – good

Away v Northampton – dire 

If you forget Caerphilly at home (who wouldn’t like to do that?) then the pattern can be explained by ‘home’ and ‘away’.  We would not be the only team in the league to show distinct differences in this way.  One of our problems before this season has been that teams came to The Stoop without feeling intimidated one iota.  Probably the most visitor-friendly venue in the league in terms of getting a result.  That seems to have changed, but it must be maintained.  Bigger crowds.  More passionate crowds.  Louder and prouder crowds.  I could go on…  One thing the team can do nothing about is the atmosphere in the ground and the performance of the spectators.  That, my friends, is 100% down to us.

Key Issues for Saturday

It’s a big ask for the coaches to turn things around on Saturday.  There are two key questions – the performance of the forwards and the performance of the backs.  Yes, I know – intellectually stimulating stuff, isn’t it?

What I mean, in all seriousness, is that both our specialist coaches, JK and PT, have their work cut out this week and both will have to succeed for us to win on Saturday.   Of the two, I think JK has the easier task.

The forwards have all the experience you could wish for and no little skill either.  On paper, they are more than a match for Saracens’ eight.  They will need to dominate our own set piece and disrupt theirs.  The forwards have to be really fired up for this one, from the very start.  We must get on top early and stay on top.  We need to find a metre or two more pace than last weekend. 

The backs situation is more tricky.  I suspect a lot of time spent poring over the video of last week, sorting out some positional errors, defensive alignments, missed tackles and so on.  Hopefully, there will also be a little time to think about some attacking moves too. 

If there’s one thing that worries me, it is the pace and ‘width on the game’ of the Saracens’ backs against the defensive capabilities of our backs.  Assuming he’s fit (and selected) Satala needs a big performance in attack and defence.  I might be tempted to stick with Jewell, personally.  And our probable back three of Williams, Moore and Gollings must think a good game tactically.  No silliness or headless chicken impersonations.  

It is essential that we get points on the board and dominate early on.  We must not let them settle, they must be on the back foot, going backwards, starved of possession and the chance to get any rhythm into their game.  We must deny Goode the chance to kick penalties in our half (by not conceding them…) and kick sensibly so as not to let them run the ball back at us in broken play situations.

If there’s one home league fixture this season that Mark Evans will want to win, it is probably this one.  Davison and Diprose too, I suspect. 

Expect a tight gameplan from Harlequins, based around possession and territory.

We are a better team than the one that played last Saturday.  I think you will see that this week.  The forwards can win the match for us, so long as the backs don’t lose it.  Harlequins, by ten points.

Come on you Quins!