Sale vs Leicester

[Puja]

Sale: Hammersley; Ashton, S James, L James, Yarde; R du Preez, Cliff; Oosthuizen, Webber, Cooper-Woolley, Evans, J-L du Preez, Ross (capt), Wilson, D du Preez

Replacements: Langdon, Harrison, John, Phillips, B Curry, Warr, Curtis, Solomona

Leicester: Veainu; Holmes, Taute, Eastmond, Olowofela; Reid, Van Poortvliet; Bateman, Polota-Nau, Cole (capt), Lavanini, Spencer, Liebenberg, Reffell, Boladau

Replacements: Kerr, Leatigaga, Heyes, Batley, Wells, Lewis, Simmons, McPhillips

[Puja]

Interesting to see van Poortvliet get the shout over Simmons at scrum-half for Leicester. I've heard a lot of good things about JvP and am fascinated to see him play. Not a good sign for the 22 year old Simmons being overlooked for the 18 year old though!

Puja

[Banquo]

Interesting to see van Poortvliet get the shout over Simmons at scrum-half for Leicester. I've heard a lot of good things about JvP and am fascinated to see him play. Not a good sign for the 22 year old Simmons being overlooked for the 18 year old though!

Puja

His dad's a legend

[Beasties]

Anyone watched this? I watched the first two mins and was convinced JvP was an upgrade on Youngs in that time.

[Puja]

Anyone watched this? I watched the first two mins and was convinced JvP was an upgrade on Youngs in that time.

That did not continue, I'm afraid. JvP looked like he'd been learning from Youngs - ponderous to the breakdown, slow to make decisions, and not the quickest pass (although accurate enough). I won't bury a young player on the basis of one crap game in a crap team, but he played the ball away even slower than Youngs and showed very little promise.

Leicester were just dire from start to finish. Our team don't look like they train together, in both attack and defence, and there are no discernable tactics or overarching patterns of play. We have two moves - pass the ball down the line and hope someone makes a break, or pass the ball to a forward who runs into a player, with a couple of other forwards perhaps supporting him if we're lucky (although about half the time, this "move" appears to come as a complete surprise to the "support" players). Rucks are static and turgid. Players like Boladau, Reid, McPhilips are this years' signings and they don't look Premiership quality. Young players like Olowofela are going backwards. And our leadership is possibly best summed up by our captain, Dan Cole, getting yellow carded for committing the same offence of taking the lifter at the lineout from three consecutive lineouts. Sale started in their own half, had two lineouts when Dan helped them get to the 5m line with free penalties, and then he gave them an extra player when they got there.

How has Murphy still got a job? How is he being promoted?! How do any of the coaching staff have the gall to say they're doing something worth a paycheque? Just because Saracens are keeping us from relegation this year doesn't make this season not an utter embarrassment.

Puja

[Tigger]

Sale made hard work of the poorest Leicester side I think I have ever seen....but the conditions were abysmal....

I know you were missing a raft of international players as the press keep reminding us but we were missing

Faf, Lood, Akker, RJVR, Ashton, AJ, Josh all injured + Tom and Byron on international duty.

[Digby]

Interesting to see van Poortvliet get the shout over Simmons at scrum-half for Leicester. I've heard a lot of good things about JvP and am fascinated to see him play. Not a good sign for the 22 year old Simmons being overlooked for the 18 year old though!

Puja

Interesting, good even, that Leicester are looking to bring through some kids. There might be no immediate benefit to that so they need to keep their nerve, even if some of the players don't make the grade it will help create a culture and energy around the club

[chris1850]

Sale made hard work of the poorest Leicester side I think I have ever seen....but the conditions were abysmal....

I know you were missing a raft of international players as the press keep reminding us but we were missing

Faf, Lood, Akker, RJVR, Ashton, AJ, Josh all injured + Tom and Byron on international duty.

And Ben Curry

Great to see Marland get a hat trick and getting better and more confident with each game back from his horror injury. A good win but it really should have been a 50 pointer - we left several tries out there, 2 in particular from huge overlaps that were never taken.

Have to agree though that Tigers were absolutely awful. One of the worst displays from an opposition I have seen in several years. They offered nothing whatsoever in attack. The only upside for them that I saw was that they defended our mauls very well (when not infringing). Even the odd one we got going! How much more credit has Murphy got left?

Very telling that Tigers supporters can't even summon up the strength to have their usual one-eyed rant at the biased referee. Especially as it was Tempest who is particularly poor and very very anti-Tigers (according to the more swivel eyed observers). As it happens Tempest had a good game generally last night.

[ad_tigger]

Saw this live with my 9 year old on some free tickets, we were in row B on one of the five metre lines. From that limited view it felt pretty much as Puja describes it. Felt quite sorry for our number 8 for one of the second half tries, he'd clearly injured himself in the previous ruck and limped out to fill a hole on the blindside before finding Marlon Yarde coming at him at full pace.

Sums it up that by far the highlight for my lad was meeting Faf de Klerke and having a 10 second chat with him rather than anything that happened on the pitch.

[Scrumhead]

Anyone watched this? I watched the first two mins and was convinced JvP was an upgrade on Youngs in that time.

That did not continue, I'm afraid. JvP looked like he'd been learning from Youngs - ponderous to the breakdown, slow to make decisions, and not the quickest pass (although accurate enough). I won't bury a young player on the basis of one crap game in a crap team, but he played the ball away even slower than Youngs and showed very little promise.

Leicester were just dire from start to finish. Our team don't look like they train together, in both attack and defence, and there are no discernable tactics or overarching patterns of play. We have two moves - pass the ball down the line and hope someone makes a break, or pass the ball to a forward who runs into a player, with a couple of other forwards perhaps supporting him if we're lucky (although about half the time, this "move" appears to come as a complete surprise to the "support" players). Rucks are static and turgid. Players like Boladau, Reid, McPhilips are this years' signings and they don't look Premiership quality. Young players like Olowofela are going backwards. And our leadership is possibly best summed up by our captain, Dan Cole, getting yellow carded for committing the same offence of taking the lifter at the lineout from three consecutive lineouts. Sale started in their own half, had two lineouts when Dan helped them get to the 5m line with free penalties, and then he gave them an extra player when they got there.

How has Murphy still got a job? How is he being promoted?! How do any of the coaching staff have the gall to say they're doing something worth a paycheque? Just because Saracens are keeping us from relegation this year doesn't make this season not an utter embarrassment.

Puja

I really have no idea how Murphy is keeping a job, let alone being promoted.

As a Quins fan, I sympathise with a lack of ‘discernible tactics’. Without Ford, May and Genge, it really feels like Veainu’s individual moments of outrageous skill are your only real weapon.

[Banquo]

I won't bury a young player on the basis of one crap game in a crap team, but he played the ball away even slower than Youngs and showed very little promise.



Puja

Lol, and proceed to bury him. Given the lack of progress made by any forward, seems a tad harsh to have a pop at his distribution.

[Scrumhead]

Indeed - at one point Will Spencer (who I do actually rate) took the ball about 5m behind the gain line and just had a little lay down before the tacklers got to him.

[Tigersman]

I thought JVP had a decent game and played better than Simmons when he came on.
IDK maybe it's no sort of the habit to blame 9's all the time I guess. Most likely because Youngs is usually too blame.

But JVP had no protection in the ruck, had no forward runners offering themselves and had a backline that wasn't doing anything.
You can't make quick decisions if no one around you is playing with urgency.
All you can really be is accurate which he was.

Sale away with none of the players that usually make something at tigers in those conditions I thought he held his own.

[Tigersman]

The big problem was Murphy went with a Forward back bench split of 6/2 and Taute went down injured after 13 minutes and we didn't have a 13 cover really in the squad. Once he went we lost all defensive structure to go on top of out weak attack plan.

A worry given that England might be in that problem tomorrow.

[Puja]

I won't bury a young player on the basis of one crap game in a crap team, but he played the ball away even slower than Youngs and showed very little promise.



Puja

Lol, and proceed to bury him. Given the lack of progress made by any forward, seems a tad harsh to have a pop at his distribution.

Hardly burying - I'm not saying he'll never make it or anything, but he did show very little promise on the day. As you said, he wasn't regularly presented with huge numbers of options, but he seemed to stop for a good couple of seconds to get everything just-so at every breakdown, rather than just getting the ball away. It wasn't like the options got any better for him waiting around, but the Sale defence got better set!

Puja

[Puja]

Sale made hard work of the poorest Leicester side I think I have ever seen....but the conditions were abysmal....

I know you were missing a raft of international players as the press keep reminding us but we were missing

Faf, Lood, Akker, RJVR, Ashton, AJ, Josh all injured + Tom and Byron on international duty.

And Ben Curry

Great to see Marland get a hat trick and getting better and more confident with each game back from his horror injury. A good win but it really should have been a 50 pointer - we left several tries out there, 2 in particular from huge overlaps that were never taken.

Have to agree though that Tigers were absolutely awful. One of the worst displays from an opposition I have seen in several years. They offered nothing whatsoever in attack. The only upside for them that I saw was that they defended our mauls very well (when not infringing). Even the odd one we got going! How much more credit has Murphy got left?

Very telling that Tigers supporters can't even summon up the strength to have their usual one-eyed rant at the biased referee. Especially as it was Tempest who is particularly poor and very very anti-Tigers (according to the more swivel eyed observers). As it happens Tempest had a good game generally last night.

It is great to see Yarde fit and firing (add him to the list of "wingers better than shoving Joseph in there). He has got some class and it'd be good to have him back to his best.

Puja