West Country approach to scrums wins the day!

By Menace
April 2 2006

It all started on Saturday morning…. I had only just left the car when I happened to come across a bearded individual (the Webmeister). In a moment of weakness I gave in to his silver-tongued persuasion. I would write the match report.

So like any trusty reporter I set off for the Crisp Bowl with note pad and pencil in hand, but there’s the rub, I had neither. So the report must be my memories of the afternoon.

Memories of Paris came flooding back. A warm sunny spring morning with Scarlet, white and green to be seen on every corner, down every street in Leicester. Would the outcome be the same? A tight match eventually settled by a magic moment from Oz? Having taken my seat, (sitting at rugby? What an alien way to watch a game) more memories of a different game in Paris came flooding back…. This time of a cold miserable match against the Paris Pinks (though they weren’t in those days), when my wife’s glasses fell to bits and bounced down a few concrete steps before we could recover them. This time the arm fell off my glasses. So my view of the game would be that of a partially sighted spectator—a bit like being a referee really!

There was little doubt that the Tigers had done their best to turn the stadium into a sea of red white and green. 16000 flags were planted around the ground to welcome us with a request for use to us them to welcome the team. We were definitely up for it. A full stadium, last seen, probably when we played our last Euro cup game there, and the noise that greeted the players must have reached levels never heard before. As supporters we were doing our bit. But could we keep it up? All too often of late we have good spells followed by long quiet times and then suddenly we would wake up again. Today was no different; an imploring SAM R-S urging us to send new waves of sound towards the players often broke our slumbers. We just didn’t last the 80 minutes. I am sure I remember a time when “supporter” meant what it said on the tin; have we forgotten how?

What about the game? Before the game Inky had said his initial report from Bath last time out had been a series of statements “scrum, lineout, lineout, scrum penalty etc” and that probably sums up today’s game. But let us look a little more deeply into the performance. I followed some supporters back who were convinced that Bath were by far the better side, definitely deserved to win, were far more adventurous, definitely had the better backs and half backs and all in all Tigers were rubbish. Had they been wearing Blue I might not have been surprised but they sported Tigers colours!!

Scoring was restricted to penalties and on 25 minutes when Andy Goode stepped up to take a kick on our own 10 metre line it looked as though we might start to edge ahead. The ball flew over the centre line, over the Bath 10 metre line over the 22 and then to the left of the posts. A miss, but from so far inside the Tigers’ half it would have surely settled the team. The backs kept throwing the ball around. Probing this way and that, making ground and doing the things they have been doing all season—dropping the ball, knocking on, losing the ball in contact. Don’t know what it was like for them but it was frustrating for us. Decision-making was again poor at times. We created several overlaps only for careless passes or the England Team disease to take over and the overlaps were squandered. Was it a case of the chance of personal glory rather than that of the Team?

Some time during the first half we were sitting in the bright, warm sunshine watching the rain pour down, when from somewhere nearby went up the cry “God must be a Bath supporter”. It always seems to rain when we play Bath. Nobody ventured the alternative shout that “you used to be a Bath, now you are just a Shower” that has been heard at Welford Road during the last couple of seasons when Bath have struggled in the league.

None of the players played particularly badly. They just didn’t have the edge to convert pressure into points. And what do points win? Prizes! Sam fielded high ball after high ball as safely as he has all season; he made several telling breaks into the line but the Bath defensive line was quick and held firm

So what of the forwards? There times when they had the upper hand. They managed to scrummage well against Bath, but then they usually do. And how do you overcome problems in the scrum? Well if you pop up often enough the scrum cannot settle and it disrupts the opposition. Bath have become ace exponents of being out-scrummaged yet surviving. The best way to negate an opposition scrum is to get two men sent off from the front row. The outcome is then uncontested scrums. So your opposition have suddenly lost their strong attacking force, have no advantages outside the scrum and so there is no chance of giving any points away while scrummaging near to your own line. Like many supporters around me I was surprised that Bath conceded so many penalties in such a short time at one scrum that they received two yellow cards and yet a penalty try was not awarded. I am sure “The Ref” (I have told Inky to put me down for a donation for your Marathon run) will be able to clarify the situation; probably along the lines that the referee must be sure “that a try would have resulted had it not been for the infringement” to award a penalty try. OK maybe we should have had a try but with so much pressure we came away with a big fat zero. We were even penalised from our throw in after we opted to take the kick to touch rather than another scrum or shot at goal. Do I sound bitter? Probably but we have seen teams and not just Tigers, penalised by a penalty try for a lot less. The fact remains that we didn’t make the most of our two man advantage in the loose after the two yellow cards.

At the end of the match there were many joyous Bath supporters and a Bath team doing a lap of honour, a Bath player winning the man of the match (Sam Vesty must have been a close contender for that) and a Bath team in the semi finals. There were no happy Tigers supporters, No Tigers team around to acknowledge the crowd (correction Oz did come out, he seems to be the team spokesman on occasions like this, I seem to remember a similar appearance in a frozen beer tent in Italy last year, and another in the “tent” at Welford Road when we had to give up our tickets for the away supporters) and no Tigers in the semi finals. This was the Bath of old never say it’s over until the final whistle. How many times have we seen Bath on the ropes to walk away with the spoils? Is this to be another one of those occasions when despite a poor performance from their scrum they contrive to win the game?

There are many in the game that are trying to reduce the importance of the scrum, a bit like becoming Rugby league really though I suppose we could go the whole hog and just play touch rugby.

We must now look towards the last of the three competitions to secure a place in Europe next year and to win some silverware. Two questions must be answered—firstly can the Team pick themselves up, overcome the mistakes they make and win their remaining games? And secondly can we, the Supporters, up our game, cheer the team on for 80 minutes, and give them the edge they need to win the title?

Menace, The Missus & “Kids”.