7th May - Sale Away

[mightymouse]

Especially after the grief we used to give poor Dullen from the terrace — the poor lad could never throw a ball in straight from our side of the pitch because the barracking was so intense. You would think he had more reason to wreak his revenge from The commentary box than anyone.

[Scott1]

I've noticed with our captaincy that we never question anything. How many times have we all asked why isnt our captain in the refs ear after he has missed something. Its quite surprising really considering Borths was a terrible moaner during a game and would question everything.

[Ian Cant]

I was very proud of our effort last night. Ugh would have given a penalty try ( preventing Young’s scoring) , commented immediately penalty try for the knock on so thought he was ok. Agree about the crawling: done twice in the lead up to two Sale tries yet Foley ignored both. I’m sure he isn’t but every time Foley refs us we never get the rub of the green. I’d make Ford captain as he is a player that I feel the refs respect: calm but firm in what he asks.
Sale just about deserved their win but with some other refs I believe we would certainly have got a losing bonus point.
Lots of pluses: Heyes, Clare, Henderson, Hanro in the pack and though he made a couple of errors Zac Henry had a very good game: his tackling is improving and his kicking game is very good.
Quins next. Need a win as we don’t want 4 successive losses in the league.

[Wayne Richardson Fan Club]

I've noticed with our captaincy that we never question anything. How many times have we all asked why isnt our captain in the refs ear after he has missed something. Its quite surprising really considering Borths was a terrible moaner during a game and would question everything.

Johno & Cozza were really good at it as was Murphy, whatever your view on the latest Lions captain & how he does it, it is a feature of his captaincy, as was his predecessor in both Red shirts.

[Scott1]

I've noticed with our captaincy that we never question anything. How many times have we all asked why isnt our captain in the refs ear after he has missed something. Its quite surprising really considering Borths was a terrible moaner during a game and would question everything.

Johno & Cozza were really good at it as was Murphy, whatever your view on the latest Lions captain & how he does it, it is a feature of his captaincy, as was his predecessor in both Red shirts.

AWJ is a brilliant captain,as was SW. Are you talking about Sam?

[Ian Cant]

Just another positive from last night: only 7 penalties conceded to Sale’s 12.
Think we have a problem we’ll Sale will have in the semis if their penalty count is that high!

[Scott1]

We lost that game in the first 30 minutes. We have to start putting 80 minute or more consistent performances together

[strawclearer]

Ben Youngs attempt at a 'tap and go' try should have resulted in a penalty try and a yellow card whilst Murimurivalu's try should have been given.

Enya is never easy! Game should have been a lot closer!

[Dangerous4]

We lost that game in the first 30 minutes. We have to start putting 80 minute or more consistent performances together

Exactly what I said a few days ago. Second half team.

[RagingBull]

Thought Brink was a monster again, quite possibly the signing that has gone under the radar the most.
I do think now with the league it might be time to give Martin some minutes at lock.

Would like to see v quins a pack of
1. Genge
2. Youngs
3. Heyes
4. Wells
5. Henderson
6. Liebenberg,
7. Reffell
8. Wiese

16. Clare
17. De Bruin
18. Cole
19. Martin
20. Brink

[JP14]

This is just my thoughts from watching the highlights as I was out last night so missed the game:

• Weak tackling for the first try

• In my opinion Rodd was clearly held and should have been pinged

• To be fair to Sale, MacGinty is playing out of his skin at the moment

• Murimurivalu's try was quite harsh and would have stood in Super Rugby, he's held but the act of scoring the try was a legal solitary movement in my very neutral opinion

• Blatant crawling from Harrison before Sale's second try

• Feel we should have been more clinical when Sale were down a couple of men, but maybe we hindered a bit by lightly punished cynicism from the home side

[Old Hob]

Why is it that the "Not straight" law disappears if teams throw to the first man in their line-out? That farcical throw hit the Sale prop in middle of his back - how was that in any way straight ???

[sam16111986]

We lost that game in the first 30 minutes. We have to start putting 80 minute or more consistent performances together

I think we are aware that our attack play isn't as sharp as it needs to be yet so we are tending to kick slot and move the opposition pack around. We take the abuse in the opening quarter knowing that the opposition pack is tiring. We then turn it up on 30 minutes backing our better fitness so that we can go up and a gear and the opposition then have to hold on. We then instantly freshen the pack up after half time so that we can increase the intensity whilst the opposition pack is gradually getting more tired knowing that most teams won't make changes until 55-60 minutes by which point we have hoped to swing the momentum and have the opposition on the back foot.

For those tactics to work you need two things in particular. The first is too squad fitness hence I suppose the signing of Walters and we can see how much fitter the squad is. The second is squad depth because of you are subbing quality off and putting inferior on then the intensity factor won't be there hence we have nights like last night where Borthwick is building up the squad experience so that he can keep working with those tactics but I'd imagine refine them further in the future.

[Crofty]

Note to self: don't come on here after a loss expecting any sort of reality

Well I’d say it’s a forum so you should always expect differing views and people to be allowed to express their feelings. Lots to be positive about still but surely you can appreciate people’s disappointment with last night

I, too, share in the disappointment! But equally as disappointed with some of the reaction here. We all have wished for the improvements we are seeing for the past lots of seasons, just a bit more patience and realism is my needed in my view
If we haven't made further strides by this time next season I may join the sceptics

We only lost by three scores

Better?

[Scott1]

We lost that game in the first 30 minutes. We have to start putting 80 minute or more consistent performances together

I think we are aware that our attack play isn't as sharp as it needs to be yet so we are tending to kick slot and move the opposition pack around. We take the abuse in the opening quarter knowing that the opposition pack is tiring. We then turn it up on 30 minutes backing our better fitness so that we can go up and a gear and the opposition then have to hold on. We then instantly freshen the pack up after half time so that we can increase the intensity whilst the opposition pack is gradually getting more tired knowing that most teams won't make changes until 55-60 minutes by which point we have hoped to swing the momentum and have the opposition on the back foot.

For those tactics to work you need two things in particular. The first is too squad fitness hence I suppose the signing of Walters and we can see how much fitter the squad is. The second is squad depth because of you are subbing quality off and putting inferior on then the intensity factor won't be there hence we have nights like last night where Borthwick is building up the squad experience so that he can keep working with those tactics but I'd imagine refine them further in the future.

Great points but giving away the first part of the game is a ridiculous strategy!