First posts after coming back...

[Raggs]

As some/most of you know, I usually take the night off after a loss, after that one, I'm just coming back today.

Going to rewatch that one, as painful as it may be, but I want to watch for myself with a bit less emotion.

My impressions that I hope to confirm/disprove are:

1. Simpson was just slightly too slow, but not awful in and of himself.

2. Gopperth was half a second too slow in his decision making, often stopping then making the pass, he was also stood very deep, which meant our normal alignment couldn't work.  This meant going wide swiftly didn't work, and we'd get caught behind the gainline often (worse still, behind our forwards, leading to very slow ball).  Eventually he'd stand even deeper, and kick, but since he was one of the deepest players, 75% of the team were offside, and up and unders were an awful choice.  If the decision was to kick to relieve pressure, it should have been Simpson doing it, since it means 90% of the team is already onside and can chase, it also means the kick is already 15m further down the pitch.  In these circumstances, the 10 calls the shots, he is the primary decision maker, and I can only put it on him.

3. Miller and Daly did a lot of work at first receiver, and looked a lot more like Cips in doing, not as good, but much flatter, and more in alignment to our normal attacking structure.

Pretty obvious I fear, where I think most of the blame lies at the moment, but without rewatching I'm not going to convince myself of it just yet.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

The other thing I would be looking for are where our flankers (6 and 7) are when we attack. A good flanker should be able to receive a very short pass at speed. My recollection is that Haskell tried this many times, and struggled to catch it many times (or dropped it).

One other thing I have noticed that is different between us and Exeter doing this is that the forward trying to punch through often pirouettes to avoid the chop tackle and two player embrace. Ours don't. Ours try to knock the wall down. Waldron is a very good example of a player who does this. Nathan does it to an extent, but not always. YY does it, as does Ash. Sometimes. Also, our forwards always seem to run at their forwrds, whereas our oppo forwards run at our backs.