Surely the game plan rests with the coaching staff and to be honest I can't see that we've got one. We play a boring 5 drives and a kick game with an inside ball to Tickle the only variation. Yes, Agar doesn't do the forward passes etc. but the team are being sent out there with no guidance or plan, confusion will set in and errors will therefore be made. So actually the errors in part can be blamed on the coaches.

Good work, can't see us getting him though. Remember when he was booed for winning man of the match?

In reply to the OP you make some good points. In my opinion Agar has made blatant mistakes with interchanges and to an extent selection. The Sam Moa situation leaves me completely baffled. 3 games in 8 days and he doesn't play in any whereas previously he's selected on the bench before his plane has reached the gate on arrival here. Any match fitness he was building has gone. Ridiculous quite frankly. Also why was Rich Whiting only introduced well into the second half last night ? Plain daft.

In terms of selection Agar has not had much choice in recent games Once again we're crippled by injury and other non-availability issues - it's a fair point he makes about 50% of the cap being unavailable.

Tactically there are obviously big issues. For those claiming 5 drives and a kick I'm not convinced that's what we're sent out to do. The fact is we do try and spin the ball - cast your mind back to last night and most if not all the errors we made were as a result of trying to spin the ball wide. We simply do not have the quality of player to carry it out. Time and again the pass lacks accuracy or the receiver's run is mis-timed or both. The simple skills of catching and passing are not good enough and the players as individuals are not carrying out their individual responsibility when doing their jobs. Players failing to play the ball correctly and missing tackles are examples of unacceptable player error at this level.

In a nutshell we don't have the skills to compete at the top level. This is more down to previous recruitment policy than anything else. We have been to too keen to promote average 'local' players instead of bringing in specialist quality. Looking at our back line last night I would say only Calderwood and Washbrook (out of position) are players who can perform consistently enough at this level. Accepting that plenty of backs were missing last night those who did play are not the required standard. Our backs were basically rubbish - no threat and unable to even link up with catch and pass. Thorman is cetainly not the required standard as a scrum half.

We need better quality players. There are a fair few unavailable but it will take 2-3 years of spot on recruitment and existing contract expiry to put the wrongs right. With regard to Agar his recruitment was reasonable over the winter but we know all too well he cant get his signings to the club. I see no point in changing coach now. We're in transition and he should be given at least this season to begin to turn things around. When he speaks after games he identifies all the right issues. Only better quality players will solve many of them. He needs to improve too no doubt about it but he gets the rest of the season for me.

Hall out then because thats the name that keeps popping up, to blaise maybe just doesnt concentrate enough for me

great post this, really well thought out. It certainly got me thinking. The only game we've lost by a big score in our run of defeats was Saints. But in all the rest we've been close. At the same time we've had a lack of creativity and struggled to convert pressure into points -which means we haven't been able to sustain pressure. There has been a lot of criticism of our creativity and inability to create openings. Yet, we are only losing by close margins.

Could it be that too much emphasis in training is going on defence. I know that sharpe isn't coach, but he does have some say in the overall set-up, and he's got a reputation as a defensive coach.

Perhaps they need to spend a larger part of the week playing out scenarios in and around the opposition 20, rather than training to defend our twenty. if you don't score with you're chances, the opposition will always find chances of their own and the more of them there are the more mistakes will be made (either by the side or indeed the ref) and we'll lose by these tight margins.

So in essence, I agree with the original post inasmuch as you can't blame the coaches for individual errors, but perhaps there is some blame as to why we were not further ahead in these games so the odd try caused by an error doesn't punish us with a loss.