by OxonRob
My apologies. I intended to make notes and to write a match report, but when it came to it I was feeling so unwell that I just sat there, wrapped in my LI weather-proof jacket, incapable of cheering, jeering or note-taking.
This is just as well. Foul weather, a foul performance and a frankly dire match would not have been nice to read about in detail. I hate to think what our team or their managers are saying to each other in the aftermath, for I have always understood that we have a truth culture, in which people put up their hands and take responsibility for what they have done or not done.
Photos by Cormac
Let's not mince words. It's one thing to lose a rugby match. If you've done your best and lost out to the better team, you just have to grin and bear it. However, this was worse than that, far worse. For all the thud of large bodies, we did not turn up mentally for this one, and in that wise at least the team need to put up their collective hands.
In broad terms, this was a Curate’s Egg of a performance, in that there were good bits and bad bits to it. We were never quite sure which would come next, but as time went by we had a horrid feeling that there would be few further good bits.
Both sides made mistakes. The difference was that ours were largely of our own making while Newcastle’s tended to be forced upon them.
Photos by Cormac
We displayed poor tactics, and executed those tactics poorly. Most of our players did good things of which they can be proud. Most did appalling things too. Our passing was of the lowest standard that I can recall in recent years.
Much has been made of Dave Walder’s line kicking, which was generally excellent. However, little has been said - overnight anyway - about Mike Catt’s line kicking, especially after Riki Flutey went off with what seemed like a dead leg. Catty drilled some beautiful kicks, finding deep secure touches in both halves. However, in general, his colleagues did not, and even he was occasionally guilty of what we had feared before the game – the hoof ahead into the secure hands of the Newcastle back three.
It is all too easy to blame our pack for failing to dominate. In all truth they didn’t, but I am not going to get into a blame culture about it. The Newcastle front five played above themselves and fully deserve whatever passes for an accolade in the Land of Squeaky. The real trouble started in the back row and spread to our midfield, in the sense that we allowed ourselves to be turned over more often than is decent. Our performance at the breakdown was, how shall I put this delicately, dire.
The result was some of the slowest ball that Flutey, and later Laidlaw will ever have seen. This was the underlying cause of much of our toothless back play. The other cause was our ‘Hoof and Hope’ kicking ahead. When you know that your opposition are good in broken play, I’d have thought that keeping the pill in hand or at least in your possession was quite a good idea. If they haven’t got it at least they cannot play with it.
Photos by Cormac
The skating rink of a pitch was the same for both sides, as was the referee, about whose performance I would only say that he was not responsible for the result.
It was not a good day at the office, but for those who expect or demand instant success out of the box, I’d only suggest that they get a dose of reality. Ours is a team in the making, not a team for Christmas. We’ll play better, again. It is unlikely that we’ll play worse. Were I wearing my green-tinted spectacles today I could probably find something good to say about most of our players this morning. However, I am not wearing them.
In short, we were stupid, stupid, stupid.
This was the kind of day to which Brian Smith will doubtless refer in the years to come when he wants to deliver a dose of reality to any inflated egos in the squad. “What did YOU do on February 12th 2006?”
