We won but the manner of our victory didn’t  please all of the Faithful. For me that’s unfair to the point of irrationality: we took on a side that, despite a slow start to the season, will probably still end up in the top four of the French Top 14, and we did precisely what was required to register a win, and send them away without a point.
Of course it would have been good to have scored four tries but was it ever likely that we’d do it against such opposition, and certainly not with the game plan that Dean Ryan has concocted.
If Olly Barkley’s place-kicking hadn’t been up and down like a fiddler’s elbow then we’d have won by an even bigger margin – the harder the kick the better he did yesterday, but give him a straightforward one and…
It’s safety first that’s going to rule in this Heineken Cup campaign, with the coach clearly differentiating between what the GP demands and what top European competition requires. Forget running the ball from deep against the better sides, and get used to stout defence and an obsession with good field position. 
Once again there were a few idiots who were on Ryan Lamb’s case – they’re justifiably described in that way as, if they failed to see that he was playing to predetermined orders, then they aren’t the sharpest tools in the bag. The game plan clearly said that when we are in our own 22 the name of the game is get it off the park, and if it’s been passed back into the 22, kick deep into space.
We’ve seen already this season that a stand-off who ignores that game plan is destined to spend some time in the Kingsholm equivalent of a gulag. If you don’t like the way we’re playing, lay off the players and go tell Dean Ryan he’s wrong – and can you tell me when you plan to do it as I’d like to be there with my camera!
Against the Biarritz scrum we did well, and we were ferocious at the breakdown – that’s what we learned from last season’s defeat to Munster and we executed it well yesterday. Our line-out was a work of art – yes, I’ll repeat that, Gloucester’s line-out was fantastic.
The easy answer is to say that Olly’s throwing better, but that has to be far too simplistic as an explanation. Quite simply, all of the parts now seem to have clicked and the  OPTA stats show that throughout this season it has been pretty good. I’ve been hugely critical of our forwards coach in the past but, however long it took, he’s seemingly got things sorted.
There were several stand out players for me, not least Ryan Lamb who did what was demanded of him and who showed a real appetite for getting involved in the defensive effort.
Alasdair Dickinson came in for a huge amount of stick when he joined us, and I recall the posts saying that he was a waste of space and couldn’t scrummage. Well, he was a young prop and Dean Ryan and his lads were right to see something in him – yesterday he took the place of Nick Wood and did brilliantly.
Sinbad was Sinbad, a threat every time he got the ball, and I thought Balshaw continued his run of good form – it’s easy to miss just how much of the organisation and leadership he does for the team.
Marco Bortolami suddenly looks like he’s enjoying his rugby again, and he’s starting to act like a leader. And then there’s the biggest and baddest of our three Olly’s – he was rightly named man of the match and he showed his class in dedicating the award to Django.
Black marks have to go to Olly Morgan – his daft misjudgement that resulted in him being binned didn’t cost us yesterday, but another time it would have done. If that sounds harsh then I reckon the Heineken Cup is won or lost through minor errors, and we got away with one yesterday.
Overall it might not have been everyone’s cup of tea, and on Shedweb the serial pessimists were out in force, but I was happy with the win and I’ll be even happier if we can see off the leek munchers next weekend! |
