Scarlets

[The Feral Goat]

Worst 40 of the season.

No platform, no ruck speed, no backline setup.

Utter pish.

Goosen and Currie plus marks LawrenceBryce all else.

[The Feral Goat]

Better second half.

We have good players, but not a good team. There was the odd fleeting moments of really good play but too many mistakes.

Lineout was awful first half so why we kept going to the corner instead of taking easyish 3s i dont get. Irrelevant in the end but against a better team it costs us.

Speed of ball away from ruck is poor, there were times it was available but not played. Would like to know if that is player or coached decisions. I thought Price was mostly SteveWalsh save for a nice pass for VDM.

Accuracy and passing was poor and zero excuse it was a perfect night for rugby.

Goosen and Currie good. Ritchie good 2nd half, replacement front row made a difference.

League is so tight we need to keep winning, not confident of top 8 or being an ST holder next season, load of improvement needed.

[Pitfitter1105]

What’s wrong with taking points in multiples of 3s?
Either the team can’t do plan A or go to plan B, or there is no plan at all! No leadership. Tonight had me questioning why make the effort to go, I could sit at home with enough drink to dull the senses.

[liveinhope]

75 points would have been about par last night given the number of chances in the "red zone" that were thrown away.
For the moment lets just be grateful we turned things around in the second half.Ritchie,Mata and Schoemann stood out but Goosen by far and away a deserved MOM.
But the league did us no favours this weekend with Ulster's last minute "steal" and Munster winning in SA.So ridiculously tight ( five clubs all on 39 points and two on 40!).Next weekend away at Cardiff is a must win given our final two matches are Munster and Benetton.
Sort out the lineout and we'll be in with a chance.

[joe soap]

Speed of ball away from ruck is poor, there were times it was available but not played. Would like to know if that is player or coached decisions. .

ruck speed is apparently about the slowest in the league. Scrum halfs, all of Edinburgh's, wait until the caterpiller is in place, or the pillars., or the next carrying pod. But so do other teams. Yet Edin ruck speed is slower. There can be 2 explanations. One is its how they are coached. Second is the players (mainly forwards) are far to slow to get into position, either to clear or to carry
Make your own mind up which tit is

[Pitfitter1105]

Is that the reason Benjy frequently gets impatient and gallops off with the ball on his own?

[doedin]

I thought Price had a shocker in the first half and Healy ended up sitting far too deep. Once Vellacot came on he sped the game up and Healy started playing flatter to the line and attacking his opposite number, made a huge difference. To be fair to Price the forwards weren't exactly presenting fast attacking ball for him and the new front row were by far more aggressive at clearing out and making hard yards. Healy is a different player when lying flatter to the gain line and he needs to be encouraged to do more of that, he is a big speedy 10 and should be threatening with ball in hand more than he does.

[joe soap]

Is that the reason Benjy frequently gets impatient and gallops off with the ball on his own?

he can only sensibly do that when he gets really quick well presented ball.
It may well be that he does see that as his chance to make an impact. More quick ball he would be able to pick and choose better, vary it and make a bigger impact

The ruck ball speed doesn't lie. All top teams have quickest ball. This has been an issue here well before Price arrived

[bignose]

The ruck ball speed doesn't lie. All top teams have quickest ball. This has been an issue here well before Price arrived

Nearly always speeds up when Shiel gets on, although those occasions are few and far between

[dolf_lundgren]

Really good second half and agree it was good to see what Healy, Lang & Bennet can do with quick ball.

Im not sure how much we were good and how much the Scarlets are just really poor?

Interestingly, we did seem to start attacking with a lot more intent and invention, with the ball being dropped in behind to a second wave of runners which we haven't done for months, also the wingers popping up on inside shoulders, something we should much more of. Im not sure that is entirely down to quicker ball, there seemed to be a want to play which hasn't been there for a while.

We need to see if we can keep this going now. I do hope this whole season has been an elaborate rope a dope by Everitt to unleash us in the play offs to everyone's surprise!

[dolf_lundgren]

Meant to add, the commentators lauded heroic defence by the Scarlets on their own line, it was really a long sequence of no arms tackles which let them hold us out, ref seemed totally oblivious to them.