Team vs Saints

[westwinds31]

Important to keep our heads screwed on for next week, it is good to get the Derby win though. Couldn't watch the game but saw the highlights, what was Lavanini's yellow card for? Also Leatigaga was being a bit silly but was well handled in the end by Barnes and Gengey (although I suspect the former, like Austin, was more worried about his car!).

Lavanini's yellow was pretty much a "team yellow", given we'd been penalised in the red zone several times. I think he was one of a couple that were offside. On reflection, Liebenburg and Steward were the standout players for me yesterday. Hanro put some decent carries in from the restarts. Makes such a difference in terms of exiting. Steward is proving to be solid at 15. Good under the high ball, brave and an elusive runner. I worry about out penalty count. Ok, if you're under pressure I get that penalties are often given away, but the amount of stupid penalties is alarming. Good win though, but still can't get used to no spectators.

[Crofty]

Oh for crying out loud. Some people...

be fair we extended our lead when down to 13 men, a decent team would have put at least 1 try on us then, but you can only play the side in front of you

Pure speculation

Not really, its a reasonably well established stat that a team serving a yellow card will, on average, have 7 points scored against them.

[Tiglon]

be fair we extended our lead when down to 13 men, a decent team would have put at least 1 try on us then, but you can only play the side in front of you

Pure speculation

Not really, its a reasonably well established stat that a team serving a yellow card will, on average, have 7 points scored against them.

I don't think stats apply to thing that never happened.

You're right though, if we were playing Exeter we would have probably lost the match. But we weren't playing Exeter. No one is saying we are good enough to beat Exeter or would have beaten Exeter.

I think what you're saying is that the only reason that we won was that we were better than the other team and if they had been better than us then we might have lost. Isn't that stating the obvious a bit?

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We may be in 11th, and at any other time that would convert to bottom of the table. But this was and East Midlands derby, forget whether we played well or not Northampton couldn't beat a side with only 13 players on the pitch!!

[Crofty]

Pure speculation

Not really, its a reasonably well established stat that a team serving a yellow card will, on average, have 7 points scored against them.

I don't think stats apply to thing that never happened.

You're right though, if we were playing Exeter we would have probably lost the match. But we weren't playing Exeter. No one is saying we are good enough to beat Exeter or would have beaten Exeter.

I think what you're saying is that the only reason that we won was that we were better than the other team and if they had been better than us then we might have lost. Isn't that stating the obvious a bit?

The point im making is not that we can't beat Exeter, that is, as you point out, utterly banal. The point I'm making is that we can't beat a bang average team, that means we're bottom half of the table and while we're rebuilding and that does take time I'm trying to temper expectations for next season because the way some are treating yesterday's win I fear the level of disappointment that will hit them next season will translate into calling for SB's head...

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The point I'm making is that we can't beat a bang average team

But we did....

[CrumblingTerrace]

Has somebody given Hanro his Weetabix?

He's transformed in the last couple of games!

[Crofty]

The point I'm making is that we can't beat a bang average team

But we did....

Saints are sub-average, or at least played that way yesterday. They've been pretty poor all the way through restart rugby, their table position is down to a productive start to the season last year and early this...

[JP14]

Any footage available of this Lavanini hit everyone is talking about?

[JP14]

Important to keep our heads screwed on for next week, it is good to get the Derby win though. Couldn't watch the game but saw the highlights, what was Lavanini's yellow card for? Also Leatigaga was being a bit silly but was well handled in the end by Barnes and Gengey (although I suspect the former, like Austin, was more worried about his car!).

Lavanini's yellow was pretty much a "team yellow", given we'd been penalised in the red zone several times. I think he was one of a couple that were offside. On reflection, Liebenburg and Steward were the standout players for me yesterday. Hanro put some decent carries in from the restarts. Makes such a difference in terms of exiting. Steward is proving to be solid at 15. Good under the high ball, brave and an elusive runner. I worry about out penalty count. Ok, if you're under pressure I get that penalties are often given away, but the amount of stupid penalties is alarming. Good win though, but still can't get used to no spectators.

Thank you!

[MCC1964]

Important to keep our heads screwed on for next week, it is good to get the Derby win though. Couldn't watch the game but saw the highlights, what was Lavanini's yellow card for? Also Leatigaga was being a bit silly but was well handled in the end by Barnes and Gengey (although I suspect the former, like Austin, was more worried about his car!).

Lavanini's yellow was pretty much a "team yellow", given we'd been penalised in the red zone several times. I think he was one of a couple that were offside. On reflection, Liebenburg and Steward were the standout players for me yesterday. Hanro put some decent carries in from the restarts. Makes such a difference in terms of exiting. Steward is proving to be solid at 15. Good under the high ball, brave and an elusive runner. I worry about out penalty count. Ok, if you're under pressure I get that penalties are often given away, but the amount of stupid penalties is alarming. Good win though, but still can't get used to no spectators.

Thank you!

Agree about TL's yellow being a team yellow. He was quite unfortunate in this instance. Coley came into the maul hard hitting Tomos in the back causing him to crumple which then brough the maul down.

[Smudge]

I enjoyed the game. All the comments by the commentators and pundits that Stains played poorly was very disrespectful to us.
On paper it was a good team and you can but play what's put in front of you.
It will take time to gel into the team we want to see but I was encouraged by our performance and the sight of
a bit of old fashioned Leicester "dog" , in places.

[Ian Cant]

Nadolo was incredible and all his tackles were fantastic: he also made one important turnover turnover and proved again he’s pretty good in the scrum!
Freddie Steward’s tackle on Naiyaravoro was superb as was his penalty kick.
Hopefully he has become first choice at 15 and will continue to grow.
Lavanini is now showing very good form and I personally though it was Dan Cole who should have got the yellow. Line out is still a concern as for some reason we over complicate things which was evident when down to 13 we kept it simple and won our own ball(2 out of 3 I think in the 10 minutes).
Some are saying Saints played badly: well look again at the first half: the line speed of our defence would have caused problems for any team.
Then when down to 13 our game management was very good.
I still don’t want to finish 11th so hope we beat Quins and get something at Bristol.

[ourla]

I'm glad we won because it takes the heat off a bit, it was Ben Youngs 250th and it was Saints.

Sounds a bit hard to evaluate the performance but to me at least that doesn't matter much. Every week the players and coaches are getting to know each other and it's just work in progress at the minute.

Interesting comment from Youngs after his dressing room presentation saying how excited he was at this current "regime". Yeah, I know players say stuff but it was an interesting thing to say in the circs and I think there is some reality to that.

[Harrystiggers]

This was clearly not the best performance we have seen against a lackluster Saints side, but what did show through was a different mindset from the whole team.I thought Tom Youngs has a good run out coming back from injury and Charlie Clare coming on for him continued to cement his position for regular appearances. Mobile around the park, tackling well and solid in the scrum.
Nadolo finally gave us a glimpse of what he can do.
Steward impressed at the back as did Harry Potter when he came on.