Leeds Drubbed Again!
By apb
September 19 2005
Two terrible defeats, each time having shipped enough tries to allow a bonus point to each of London Irish and Saracens, following on from a particularly uninspiring pre-season victory against a lack-lustre Edinburgh, and the Tykes were already struggling at the wrong end of the table.
And so not a particularly good time to be coming up against arguably the best club side in English rugby at the moment.
I was, suffice to say, worried. All the match reports I'd read had spoken of a team whose wheels had come off. A team who had lost their direction and were struggling to do any of the basics. Particularly galling after the fabulous end to last season.
However, with two shouty kids and a drum in tow, I checked my pessimism at the gate and took my usual place on the South Stand terrace. The opera singer providing the warm-up entertainment was in good voice, and the crowd appeared to be quite a reasonable size, allowing for the usual mad rush from the local hostelries at 14.29. Sadly, that mad rush didn't appear, and only a crowd of 4,544 souls watched the first Premiership match at Headingley this season.
Ten to fifteen minutes in to the game, it was clear that Leeds had sorted some things out. Wasps were finding it hard to penetrate a tight defence, and the handling and decision making by Leeds, although not earth shattering, was precise and good. With de Marigny in the role of fly-half, the two half-backs seemed to have something of an understanding, and - apart from one nervious clearance kick that was about as close to finding touch as my Golden Gamble number was to the winner - de Marigny had a good spell.
Wasps fans have observed that it was a very dull and dreary start to the match. Now I will concede that this is almost certainly down to my low expectations of the day, but I was pretty enthralled by the first half. Particularly when the Tykes got hold of the ball, sent Jon Dunbar over from the twenty-two who was only just stopped short, and the quick recycling allowed Marshall to feed Balshaw for the score near the posts. Conversion duly got, and with van Gisbergen having kicked all his penalties for Wasps, the half ended with a Tykes lead of 16-12.
So, everything I'd read about the Tykes' play had either been wrong, or - more likely - rectified. This was that match that it was going to come good, and the Tykes first victory was on the cards. Having checked my pessimism at the gate, it looked like someone had carelessly lost a whole truckload of optimism, and I'd found it!
In the second half, the Wasps started extremely strongly, but the Tykes were good enough (just) to repel the initial waves.
And then it all went tits-up.
I don't know what anyone in the Tykes camp was thinking, and I didn't make enough notes to do justice to an awesome Wasps display, but, quite frankly, the Tykes forgot they were a Premiership outfit and played as if they were a bunch of Under-11s. They lost shape, they lost their belief, they didn't seem to be able to hang on to the ball, and when they did put a few phases together, they managed to lose it through some hugely complex and totally telegraphed moves.
Ibanez helped himself to a brace of tries, Sackey, Hart and Tom Voyce all strolled across the line for easy points, and van Gisbergen was in excellent kicking form as ever converting everything he was asked to. The Wasps deserved their victory, but the Tykes put it on a silver platter for them and asked if they would like anything else. There was one moment where Leeds could have got back into it, when they won ball back on their own twenty-two, and several players - Marshall, Balshaw, Snyman and Palmer interlinked to get the ball right to the opposition try-line, only for Mr. Fox to call a knock-on over the line. From there the game was lost, and it was moments later when Paul Sackey finished the Tykes off strolling over the line to score in the right-hand corner with barely a hand laid on him. Final score: 23-47.
I didn't stay for the Long Room session - I had to get straight off. But when I got to the St. Michael's Lane entrance, I found someone had left with my pessimism. All that was left in the pessimism-check area was a whole containerload of the stuff, and with a weary heart, two wearier kids and a particularly heavy drum, I trudged carward, and home.
Referee Fox
The referee was one of the new guys, one Martin Fox, and I don't believe he covered himself in glory. Again, I'll admit to the potential of being a one-eyed onlooker here, but there were numerous suspiciously crooked-looking line-out throws, and the guy just did not know what to do with the scrummage at all. So he resorted to guessing, resetting twice every time and then randomly penalising one side or the other. He didn't materially affect the outcome of the game - Wasps were far too good and Leeds far too bad for that to happen, but he most certainly didn't have a very good one himself. Oh, and that Tom Palmer "knock-on" over the line clearly wasn't - I could tell from where I was standing fifty metres away at an acute angle with loads of people in my eye-line, so why couldn't he?
After Match Comment
Speaking to Dave Craven of the Yorkshire Evening Post, Phil Davies said: "We have not got any major issues, other than we can't win a game. Other than that we are okay. It is a building process and it doesn't always go in a straight line. At the moment, I think we are going backwards."
Really? So, from the best defence and the acknowledged best team in the Premiership from the last six games of last season to shipping 13 tries in three at the cost of 108 point with only fifty in reply is backwards? Wow! Who'd have thought it?
For fifty minutes the Tykes looked like a Premiership outfit. For the rest, they were a bunch of schoolboys being given a masterclass in team oriented rugby. At this rate, there is nowhere to go but down through the disasterous ND1 trap-door. Phil Davies is all for the upbeat "accentuate the positive" in his dealings with the press, but there is no doubt that another match like that and the Tykes can wave goodbye to any hopes of a top seven finish, and hope and pray for a miracle again like last year.
It was THAT depressing....