Our on field power to adapt to circumstances is not good. You will have heard that the definition of madness always does the same and expects a different result. Well, that’s exactly what we did with every ruck for the first 50 minutes of this game. I bet that even Scarlets could not believe that we did not incorporate it in this area to try to have Lousi guessed. The same can be said about our ability to prevent sales at the ruck. Maybe a few where we have committed a few to make Scarlets think differently next time. In total we were too predictable in these facets of the game and we seemed unable to change the story.
Before this game I was worried about where our points would come from. The starting XV had only 10 attempts between them and only 12 points of penalties throughout the season. We have been overly dependent on people like Darcy to get ourselves over the line. We have selected 5 centers throughout the season; Only Dean, Currie and Hutchison have scored attempts and even then it is only 4. This graph shows the decreasing returns as the season progresses. Game 8 was lost when we lost Darcy.
Our line -out works far too often. Before the weekend we had the highest number of line -out fines against us from a team in the competition. 12 in total and 5 of them were for obstruction. This is not aimed at the whores because there are many moving parts of a line -out, sometimes it feels like there are way too much, but do we have a line -out coach, even on a consulting base? I think we can do with one.
We lose players of injuries/illness for the match a lot. Here is the list for this season. It seems a lot, but I don’t pay much attention to other teams in this respect. Can’t be good for cohesion, regardless of.
18/2/23 V Scarlets – Cherry Out, McBurney in
23/2/22 V Glasgow – Goosen Out, Paterson in
15/1/23 V Castres de Bruin, Ventter, Harrison, Boffelli Out
17/12/22 V Castres – Two Out, Hoyland
30/10/22 V Cardiff – Immelman Out, Blain in
24/9/22 V Bulls – Kinghorn Out, Jaco in. Dean Out, Currie
It has become increasingly clear that Ramiro Moyano is a loss. 953 minutes on the field and 9 attempts before he was injured by the end of last season. His replacement, Wes Goosen, has had 570 minutes so far and has crossed the Whitewash twice. He cannot help the injuries he has had, but the fact remains that we are more for our money from the Argentinian.
A repeated criticism of Blair Kinghorn at the age of 10 is that he does not control his back line. If that applies to him, it is double for Charlie Savala. Yes, he is raw. Yes, he is learning, but he is a bit shy where he should be to run a line, especially if things don’t go on our way and the captain doesn’t do much captain. See how Ben Healy dictates the plays for Munster. He is only 10 months older than Savala. Different roads have led them to where they are, but I think we urgently need that kind of control in this crucial position.
We are soft. More than once this season I have shown back into a game and bullied the word in relation to our game. That softness was taken back after the departure of Richard Cockerill. The other where it has been knocked back is that effort is something that is mentioned as positive. And regardless of who the coach is, Cockerill’s quote that “efforts should not be praised, it should be expected, really” should still remain. In honesty for Mike Blair after the game, there was probably nothing else in the Plus column to concentrate on.
Hamish Watson is not ready to return to the start of Scotland. It is disputable if he will ever be.
Progress is illusory. Someone on Twitter at the weekend made the point that Edinburgh follows each well (relatively) season with a bad one. That has certainly been the case in the last 5 years.
2017 – Quarterfinals
2018 – 5th in conference
2019 – Semi final
2020 – 5th in conference
2021 – quarterfinals
Of course it is very likely that 2022 will be one of the poor to continue this trend.
And to you. What else have we learned?
#Red #confronted #Scarlets #learned #Edinburgh #defeat