Having reflected on the performance and leaving Smith out of it as I’ve mentioned my thoughts on him on another thread I think there were positives from last night but also some big negatives which are affecting our ability to win games.
The middles have come in for lots of criticism, and rightly so, however Singleton I thought was outstanding particularly in his first spell. He took on the role of senior prop and really dominated at times. Harvard put in his normal spell the other middles were poor going forward and Clubb may as well hand a target on his head in defence against in and around the ruck.
Our attack is basically get it to Hastings. It’s so predictable. Our halves are simply link men who provide the ball to him. Which ever side he is on the ball goes there meaning basically we telegraph everything we do.
Powell, and this is a tough one as he is a warrior, is killing us with his one dimensional play. As good as he was last year and the improvements he made he’s gone backwards this year. His delivery is slow and inaccurate and there is no craft around the ruck. The markers can get out and pressure the receiver because again his lack of threat enables them to not really have to worry about him. When Bourouh came on the delivery was quicker and he offered a threat from 9.
Rotation of subs. This was really poor. I can’t for the life of me understand his use of the prop rotation last night after half time. When we needed to ramp things up in the second half on waddles 10 minute Tony who huffs and puffs his way round the pitch. I’ve no idea how he gets a game over Clark however when he did come on in the second half he just got in the way. I recall 1 set, maybe the Mamo try one, where he took 3 drives when we were camped on their line. He got dominated each time, generated slow PTB and gave us 0 platform. I cannot understand why we didn’t give him and Byrne a spell straight after half time then have our meter making props in Havard and on the night Singleton go for the last 30. It was like we were doing subs by numbers again looking at the clock regardless of what was going on, on the field.
The use of Bourouh was also pointless, despite our lack of threat at 9 and basically a waste of a bench spot.