My guess is that Richard Horne will say we were rusty due to not having played for a while. There were times at the start of the season where we looked very disjointed but managed to win by small margins.
We've shown in previous matches that we can be vulnerable against teams you'd imagine we'd be considerably better than - look how London put plenty of points past us when they had 12 men. Our inferior points difference - compared to those around us - also suggests we might not be as good as we think we are.
Whilst our pack still has limitations, I thought we'd looked more solid this season as I believe this has been a perennial weakness under Richard Horne's leadership. The forwards failed to get on top against Midlands and this allowed them into the game.
At one stage yesterday, with penatlies and repeat sets, I reckon we had six sets running, with plenty of those play-the-balls close to the Midlands' line, but we lacked any sort of cutting edge. When Midlands were near our line, they undid us with much greater ease.
The pressure is now on. In Carl Hall's recent video, he said that we usually come strong at the end of a season. It looks as though we're going the other way at the moment. The further down the hill you slip, the harder it becomes to recover.
All isn't lost as I'm sure we're not as bad as the last couple of games have indicated but we must reach peak form again for the play-offs if we're going to have any chance of going up.
If we don't go up, it'll be over to the club to explain why we've failed in our objective yet again.
