Quote: Big Steve "I have to say while not having seen the full toulouse game one are we do need to improve on is our line speed in defence. We allow the opposition forwards to get on too much of a roll when we should be shutting them down before they get going as Saints do.'"
I’m torn on this. It’s something I’ve been sat thinking about at times this season and all roads lead back to thinking how we close that gap to Saints. Yes their line speed is unbelievable and I wonder if we can try and replicate that but I keep coming back to the same point- we will need beat them at that game when we play them. To play a game of us meeting fire with fire and flying off the line, we’ll have to accept it’s likely to be decided through the middle of the field and we’ll be using an awful lot of energy in doing that. Are we good enough to beat them through the middle? Not a chance IMO.
I’m not saying we can’t up it by the way but to replicate it, you need to go all in on it, week in, week out and accept that we’re unlikely to see sparkling attacking rugby (as Saints fans don’t). I think we just need to find our style, our identity and way of doing things and in fairness to Peet, I think he is trying to do that. It’s been a positive start but with plenty to work on. We can certainly put more energy in to defence but I’m just hoping it’s a time and place thing and when the time calls for it, we’ll see an uplift in intensity defensively. We’ll need to see it on Saturday and I think we will but we need a balance between good defensive intent and not getting sucked in to a forwards battle. Against Catalans and in particular Saints, we’re going to need to reserve plenty of energy for when we have the ball and try and run them and keep turning them.
