Don't Panic : Sat Mar 28, 2009 1:55 am
As Douglas Adams said. There's a lot of emotive reactions to tonight's game, but I'd just like to give my balanced view. I don't think it fits into any of the existing threads so nerr.
Ref: bloody awful. I thought they were trained that if the ball pops out of the completed tackle it's probably reefed. Not tonight. I was watching the pitch markings and he was retreating 12 not 10. Gave us nothing. Nothing. Amos's try looked perfectly good to me and I was looking down on it. We got nothing tonight. Nothing.
Us: I thought we were mostly good. Muscled well - Hudds' pack is huge and we sized up, made yards, drove them back, hit hard and showed the passion we've been after. Unfortunately we harked back to 2005/6 with suicidal penalties at times, can we not cut these out? Handling errors can be partly forgiven, it was very greasy tonight, but still frustrating. Our defence was solid, even when when some tackles were missed others scrambled well. They made how many breaks?
Going forward I thought we ran good angles, good dummy runners, overall we ran well and showed good hands. Hate to say it but Tomkins cost us two tries tonight - both 3-man overlaps on the right and he went himself. He's a talent but he has plenty to learn.
Hudds: Superb defence. We ran well but Hudds' defence was awesome. No gaps at all. They covered our every option which is why Sam's mistakes when we finally worked a couple of overlaps has cost us. Let's not pretend they're an automatic 2 points any more, this is a good strong side who will turn plenty over.
Overall, bitterly disappointed. The ref caned us but we couldn't turn possession into points - but credit to Hudds' defence for that. Good to see some passion as well.