Post by kingsheathlad on Sept 1, 2012 18:10:49 GMT
Back from the game.Very disappointing.All the promise shown in the pre season games vanished.Our line out did not function again, I forgot how many we lost on our own through and can't remember taking any of their throws. The first five minutes looked promising as we attacked from the start but that was it and we had long periods without the ball.Our tackling was not great and once you give a side like Bedford ball to run at you ,you know it will be backs to the wall stuff. apart from Thomas making a few breaks from full back we failed to get any momentum or a period where we could put pressure on them.I hope that was our one bad game of the season.Need to uP our game for Nottingham
It was on a par! if not worse than the drubbing we took at Northampton when they were relegated into the Championship. Shocking doesn't really sum it up. There were very few positives to take away from this game, the lineout was possibly the worst I have witnessed at this level and in the rucks and mauls we were hopelessly out-gunned. Nevertheless, a good wake up call to all the squad to understand that it ain't going to be easy again ths season.
Disappointing, indeed, but also a reality check. Good start and things were looking promising. Thought we should have taken 3 points early on instead of kicking for the corner and taking the line - out. Take points when they are on offer. I think we missed the presence of Mike Powell... his experience would have perhaps added some degree of pragmatism. I wasn't counting but thought we conceded a lot of penalties. Bedford, by contrast, seemed to be more disciplined when the pressure came down. They were certainly clinical when we turned over, too. Also - restarts were very poor. All our kick offs seemed to be too long and we could not properly attack. There were some shockers when we were receiving. Thought Ben Pons was energetic and put himself about. also impressed with young Robinson for his 15 mins or so. I always saw this game as win / win. If we lost then great experience against a consistently top side. We can head back to Billesley now with a game under our belt, new guys blooded, team has first proper competitive match together. Onwards and upwards.
Too many mistakes. Lineout did not work. Changed game plan after 10mins which allowed Bedford to keep ball in hand. Game over. Please come on you Mooooose.
Mose and Plymouth will be the weakest in The Championship this season and Plymouth set their stall out with a win against Donny today. Pre-season means very little if you don't turn up!
Gutted by performance today. So much for a new dawn. Every season we start with high expectations and look at what we got today - nowt different to the other seasons. After the first ten minutes - which were promising, no doubt about that - Bedford got into their stride and ran us ragged. Bedford's second try was a peach of abject lesson on how to out flanking the defence with pace. The line out in the first half was poor and in the second half abysmal. The scrum were generally solid throughout the game - not solid enough to dominate - and the driving mauls were reasonable although I feel that Bedford were marginally better controlled at the important times. There were some good line breaks - Ollie made one excellent break but fluffed his final pass - whist others were wasted by wild offloading. I thought that the tackling back element was superb and this stopped a couple of almost certain tries which would have made the score even more embarrassing. At least - apart from staying put at the bottom, below the newcomers Jersey- the only now way is up. At least that will be some progress.
Got to agree with all of the comments here apart from that is was similar to the game v Saints at Franklin's a few years back - that was something else altogether! We have capitulated worse than yesterday on several occasions since then, home to London Welsh springs to mind.
Blues are top 3 or 4 consistently and this needs to be chalked off as one of the nasty ones out of the way; I think the overwhelming disappointment is because we ran them relatively close twice last season and because we were so dominant in the first 10-15 minutes - turning pre-season optimism into premature confidence.
Line-outs were woeful - is Stotty available for coaching duties? Receiving restarts was also dreadful, how about instead of lifting someone to not catch the ball (how many times now!?) we use the three invovled in that to cover the space better?
It's hard to glean much from day 1, the next three games are critical and if we don't win at least one of them we are in big trouble (with Bristol and Newcastle to follow straight after).
As I said if you give three tries away in 10mins in mid 1st half.........proceed to give another away in 1 min of 2nd half and your line-out don't work.............it is likely that a. top 3 team will bust you open.
The top teams add to their squad pre season sitting comfortably in the knowledge that they are adding to a big squad of quality. Makes game plans a bit easier. We have not had this luxury for some seasons. We are always bringing in players that HAVE to make a difference rather than adding additional qualities to a competent squad who can match others most times. The top teams have the funds to add real quality while Moz have to search for the best they can for the money. It will be interesting to see how L Scottish get on!
Moz are starting again - again - its gunna take time for the new team to blend.
I think the optimism came from new season excitement of fans rather than from the coaches or management.
This seasons fixtures look particularly awesome. We cannot take too long to blend or we will be holding up the league. I do not envy Maggsy and co, this is a tough task with old bad habits lingering.
I will be bringing a French friend from Le Mans to the Plymouth match later in the month - so lets give him something to talk about at home (fortunately its Plymouth but shhh on that for now!)
Meanwhile big preparations for Nottingham another strong team but one we will have to test if we are to "challenge" for mid table placing................
I didn't see yesterday as Cov faced Ealing at home, but Bedford away is probably the toughest fixture now out the way. I wouldn't get too down hearted it was always going to be hard. However, the next two weeks will shape our season in my opinion as Nottingham look there weakest in some time despite a good result against Leeds and Jersey are going to be battling to stay up. We need at least 6 points from the next 2 weeks to get ourselves on our way to top 8. Come on Moooooooossseeee!
Although yesterdays game was disappointing, we need to look forward and now concentrate on Nottingham next weekend. I'm sure the players will be kickin themselves for the way they played. And of course it was against a Bedford Blues side that will definitely be aiming for a promotion push this season. With the overhaul we've had in the summer this was their first competitive game as a team, Maggs is a fantastic coach but can't produce miracles over night. I think we need to slightly lower our expectations and back the lads to finish 10th or above. With our budgets, compared to other teams, that in my eyes would be a good season and safe to have another year in the RFU Championship. C'mon Mose!!!
Everyone has covered the salient points above, so I can't add much, save to say that Goldington Road is still a great place to watch rugby and the Bedford fans are a fine bunch. Shame about the result. Several players had a very bad day at the office - they will know who they were, and if they don't then Maggsy will tell them. What would I change next week? Perhaps Billy Robinson for Anders Mogenson, who didn't commit to tackling very well and ran some puzzling lines when he had the ball. Might there be room for Brad Hunt somewhere?
And get the effing line-out sorted. It really was an absolute scandal.
Post by kingsheathlad on Sept 2, 2012 16:33:10 GMT
Now the first round of matches completed , I suppose there were no surprises, so let's get behind the team Saturday and get five points and move up that table. Newcastle did not put a cricket score up against Bristol who had ten missing with injuries. May be tho top of the league will be closer than everyone thought. COME ON THE MOSE
On the evidence of that showing Dave Hilton has a lot of work to do! Strange game Saturday where we were quite dominant for the first 15 but failed to put any points on the board to being taken apart for the final 65.
Have to agree with a lot of the comments on the board except for the scrummage. We've been pretty poor at the basics of forward play in all our games thus far. Line out issues are well documented (got to the stage where we couldn't risk kicking our penalties for touch at the end), we're consistently falling foul of the refrees at the scrummage engagement, we struggle to counter the driving maul, and our restart receptions are at times embarrassing (led to the crucial score after half time).
Apart from the first 15 the backs had next to no go forward ball at all and were living off scraps. We were perhaps not clinical enough early on and spurned the two chances we made but we also declined two kickable pens aswell which seemed a strange option as once we fell behind we began to kick for goal! Also Ollie Thomas made a beautiful break late on but proceeded to butcher a certain try by failing to execute a simple 2 on 1.
Don't think it's time to panic yet as I'm sure many sides will take a hammering at Blues this season but what did strike me was the difference in body shapes between our packs. We seem to sport a couple of 70's style physiques whereas all their players seemed to look like athletes. Bit concerning that Mike Powell is unavailable and the cupboard already looks bare at lock. Think we are covered in the backline in the case of injuries with King and Hunt to come back but the squad looks short on depth in the pack. Think Kevin may need to see what else Saints have in the cupboard.
I take it our front five didn't have great day then? Seems to be a lot of chat about the locks, of course we are going to miss Powell he's a veteran who I'm sure the coaches would have liked to play alongside Lockley and Mather rather than playing them both together at Bedford away as someone said on a different thread a combined age of 42. Again like I said earlier stop being so negative and let's go again against Nottingham at home.
Fas175 agree we shouldn't be too downhearted as the domination of the first 15 minutes showed the potential is there. Bedford are a good settled top 3 side and will pose a lot of problems to both Bristol and Falcons. Nottingham at home is a good opportunity to put things right. Sure the players will be hurting.
