Today we were rank rotten.
We made so many mistakes, comical defending for two of the french tries and so many basic handling errors which are just sinful at this level. We made very little effort to play smart rugby, just hit it up and hit up again with no real attempt to put width on the ball.
I mean, the simplest but most effective game plan is to use slow ball for a few phases to suck in the opposition forwards, maybe use a cheeky wee crash ball to stretch the defence then just fling it wide. Instead, we continually just used crash balls and forced offloads that weren't on. This did improve to a degree when Paterson came on (not sure if that was because he was on or just coincidence though) but by that stage it was far too late. If we're going to use our size and strength we should also learn that the ball is the most important thing and that we should not be needlessly throwing it away.
The handling errors were shocking. How many knock ons and fumbles can one team make? Simply not good enough for so called internationalists. For instance, the 1st half there was a wee grubber through which Walker gathered. Now, when tackled he should have kept hold of the ball and we could have built a platform from there. Instead, he throws the ball away, France gather and run up the park with it. Compleltey wasted territory and possesion. We also dropped alot of off-loads. Great, we're trying to play running rugby but we need to have the basic skills before we do that and today it just didn't look like we did.
We pannicked. Parks' drop goal came about because we were going nowhere. Our team was bunched up, standing far too flat. No one thought to just take the ball, slow it down and get set and go from there. Instead we were frantic and threw the ball away.
As for the selection....Well Hadden was always going to be judged on how well the team played. Barclay and Callam in the back row weren't too impressive. Hogg and Strokosh really should have been involved today, going by form and experience (though more for th former than the latter). Paterson's introduction was the loudest chear of the match. We seemed to run the ball better with him at 10 and didn't just hit it up. His goal kicking would have come in handy at times today. Parks had a poor game apart from a couple of a good tactical kicks. De Luca was OK for his first cap, but by no means brilliant. Infact, the only player who I would say deserved anything vaguley resembling praise was Alan Jacobson.
A vast, vast improvement needed in the 6 day turnaround. If we don't improve we will have our arses handed to us down in Wales next Saturday.
