I think it's easy to over-react in these situations - both a heavy loss and after a heavy (unexpected) victory much like Chiefs.
Hats off to Quins for a sublime performance, they targetted our 9/10 axis throughout the game and their defence was in-your-fac aggressive. Their challenge is to do this repeatedly. The issue for Quins hasn't been their ability to play like it - For a long time, it's been figuring out a way to get them up for much than just one big game. Despite having very mediocre seasons, they often found an intensity to beat Sarries at The Stoop, but then continued to flounder.
Esterhuizen was the difference for them today - He bullied Jacob.
For Jacob, HDAWG and I share the same opinion. I said to the family today that Jacob has a bit of second-season syndrome about him - There's enough game-tape of him now for opposition defences to work him out and plan for him. There's no doubt he's a talented player who plays instinctively when he's on the front foot. He'll work it out.
Today was one of those days though where we really need to try and slow the pace down in order to regain some control and composure. When Fowkes was interviewed, he suggested we needed to up the pace but it seemed like the more frenetic the game got, the worse our composure got.
Agree also on the sentiments of pick your best scrummaging front row to start - Perhaps Brookes was on the bench because he's off, or wasn't fit enough to play the full 80 and so was perhaps enforced rather than tactical but he made a difference to our scrum when he came on.
Porter kicked a lot - which is in vogue these days for scrum-half. But his kicks were often totally uncontested (Perhaps a sign that we missed Basset or a good indication of the general lethargy about the team today). I'd like to see us vary our kicks in these situations. Often Brown was deep, so able to command longer kicks with ease. At the same time the Quins defence was rushing, so there was a good gap.
This is fairly common in games and I often wonder why the attacking team doesn't try and chip the ball over the defensive line but well in front of the FB or grubber through more often to turn the defence. It'd be a 50/50 ball, but that's better odds than just about any of our box kicks yesterday and it would also put doubt in both the FBs (does he continue to sit so deep, or come forward a bit creating space to kick long for territory) and also the defensive line's minds as they'll start to worry whether by rushing they'll expose space.
Of course, it does increase the risk of a charge down but I think in games like yesterday the benefits outweigh the risks.
Robson in particular has learnt to do this well and in the latter games of last season we saw him often vary kicks between box, long, short, low, high and keep the opposition guessing.
Lastly, a word on Miller. He's never really let us down since signing despite often playing a bit-part of the last 3-4 seasons. The poor bloke has had to contend with Piutau, WLR and Beale in his position. With Minozzi openly talking about feeling mentally and physically fatigued and Lima struggling to do the basics of a FB well - like catch and tackle perhaps it's a good opportunity to give Miller a run of games, with Lima covering 10/15 on the bench and Minozzi a few weeks R&R.
The brainfart Miller had with his no-arms tackle was lucky to be a penalty only, but I put that down to a lack of gametime/match fitness.
Always a Wasp
