Thoughts on today's game

Quote: Mrs Barista "I'll start with a plea to not make this about Agar. Just this one thread.

Horrendous start and looked like Danny Brough was going to rip us a new one at first. Our rubbish discipline just piggy-backed them up the field. However, we stuck with it and I thought Lauaki's first spell was top notch and he made a huge impact on the game.

Other positives for me were the return of Horne, who, apart from his kicking game (of which more later), looked like a big step up from Turner at 6. Towering effort from Fitz I thought too. And better use of Manu from the bench. Obst brought something to the party today too, in fact, kicking apart, I thought we matched them in the halves and that had been my major concern before the game. We need more minutes from Sam, without a doubt, as he looks a threat every time he gets the ball.

I thought the differences between the 2 sides were Crabtree, who I thought was great today and played a lot of minutes, and the kicking game. We kicked straight to the fullback or winger on their 20 for the vast majority of last tackle plays, whereas they forced at least 3 drop outs, created 3 tries and generally caused us to play deep in our own half at worst. I know Brough is probably the best executor of long kicks in the competition but it was a huge gap today and something we desperately need to work on.

But after all that, at least an improvement vs last week. I thought we were still very much in it at 14-10 tbh and with a couple of individual errors ironed out could have won the game. But we didn't. Must win next week. I'd be happy with this 17 on Friday.'"

Thanks for typing that - saved me doing it. Effort was there today, and a bit more "smartness" and better prop rotation might have got us something.

Oh and how much better do we look when playing off the cuff and forgetting the structure of the "gameplan"?