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London Double Header

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Post by quind Sat Sep 07, 2013 7:56 am

Post your updates here. I'll pop along later or tomorrow to give some thoughts based on watching the games live with the analysis enhancing capabilities of beer.

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Post by Raggs Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:07 am

Didn't see masses of the Sarries vs Irish game, but quite surprised that Irish managed to do that much damage. Yarde looking very very sharp.

Wasps vs Quins was heartbreaking Sad. Positives to take away though, Goode went very well, one or two poor kicks, but still very nice. Our defence has taken an enormous step forward. Backrow looked very good, especially considering who they were playing against, and we've got good depth there. Would have liked to have seen Wade get the ball in a bit more space, but our centres seemed to be slowing it up too much. Wade didn't do his defensive rep any favours after getting bounced a few times, but equally he always got straight back into it and did his part.

Scrum went OK overall I felt, Mullan with some jitters perhaps, and we still have a potentially 1st choice TH to come in, even if 2nd choice, it'll keep our scrum strong off the bench.

As to Quins, Care was very very good, Wallace looked sharp, Monye did well, and Lowe pulled of a fantastic tackle (I was surprised that Varndell hadn't started to drift slightly further in off the try line, but ah well). Varndell didn't make another one on one too, he was looking good, but I think he's attacking instincts need a little more game time to sharpen (I may just be expecting too much).

Next week we should get a better idea of where everyones scrums are.
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Post by quind Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:33 am

Irish were crap, really, really crap.  Sarries though will have an issue if Matt Stevens keeps defending that wide out against better sides, at times he was even stood next to Gill in areas the Irish centres should have been able to get at, even say a winger like Yarde.

Sarries passing at 10 and 12 was lamentable, indeed it might need to be given a classification other than passing as even using the word passing might lead people to believe it's better than actually is the case. Sarries were much better at defending themselves than were Irish so bad was Sarries use of the ball.

Wasps Vs Quins was just a much better game, and in many ways Quins look rather lucky to get out of there with a win.  But as well as Wasps started control of the game went to Quins mostly it seemed via the scrums.  In having the upper hand at the scrum Quins controlled territory and Wasps weren't able to much hurt Quins from so far out, even with Goode being very flat.  Wasps also a little happy to go side to side, and not worry about going forward, and also Wasps didn't get enough men into the breakdown so Quins were able to slow the ball enough.

It looked like Wasps were trying to stretch the field for width, but I think have a narrower shape, put more men into the breakdown, play with quicker ball, and you'll deliver more time and space to Varndell and Wade even starting from a narrower point.  

As a neutral I think there's much more entertainment to be had in watching Wasps of the 4 teams on show. As for Sarries, well Hodgson will help, and as for Quins I suppose Care looked sharp but they'll play better packs than Wasps and they may then struggle, though Quins could help themselves by playing a second winger, the cardboard cutout Paul Sackey not being much use at anything.  For Wasps I think a slight alteration to the shape would help, as would too a better bench especially at prop. For Irish, god knows, I suppose they have pace in the backs but even then that pack is just awful.

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Post by wonderfulworld Sun Sep 08, 2013 3:51 pm

I reckon that Irish did better then I expected but their pack is not good enough to win good ball for their backs and neither O'Leary nor Humphreys did enough to light up the backline although Yarde and Ojo put on good enough performances. Saracens just destroyed them upfront and deserved the win but Irish will do better then people expect, watching Newcastle the other day, they had no potential nor did score any points against Bath! Irish will best them, they already doing better then last season with a smaller loss Laughing 

Wasps had a good start but never will did anything until they had to defend against quins for 10 odd minutes on their line. The match was pretty boring until the last 10 minutes or so when wasps finally had to attack a bit. The whole match was 50/50 to whoever would win and the missed kick at the end went into quins favour.
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Post by Raggs Thu Sep 12, 2013 7:12 am

On rewatching I saw a few things I missed the first time in the wasps game.

Goode missed a few kicks to touch (including a penalty!), not as good a game as I first thought, but overall still a good performance.

Jackson did a lot more than I thought, and I don't think Johnson did enough coming on to really stake any claim on starting, but I guess it's going to come down to training performance.

We turned over quins a lot. Quite surprising how much, we barely competed in the breakdown, but when we did, it was with great success. We need to get another man into the the choke tackles though, on at least two occasions we got the maul called, took it down, but didn't have enough players on top to stop the ball coming out.

Felt the ref was rather poor, calling advantage over very quickly (including a penalty for wasps called when we'd not made any headway, just passed the ball a bit). He was also quite slow to call maul on choke tackles, I think we may have had one or two more of those had it been a different ref. Overall I think Wasps got the slightly rougher end of the stick, but not by much, both sides got tough calls, but in such a close match, that could have made the difference.

Wade needs to be careful when he gets involved in rucks. Most the time I have little issue, he's the supporting runner so often he's first man over, but on a defensive ruck on the wing he decided to get involved (not first man even), and that let Care go on his big run, since there was no one left on the blindside.
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Post by quind Thu Sep 12, 2013 8:54 am

wonderfulworld wrote: watching Newcastle the other day, they had no potential nor did score any points against Bath! Irish will best them
if Falcons are quick enough to ditch Godman, and ignore most of the ramblings from Wells, I think they shouldn't have too many problems finishing ahead of Irish. Irish do look to have plenty of power and pace in the backline, and Ojo looked a nice runner from 15 but whether he'll have the kicking game is open to question, not that I think it matters unless for some reason that pack improves beyond what seems reasonable hope

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