dddooommm:
One interesting point Brian Noble mentioned in his pre-match comments was that we've only really been comprehensively beaten once all year (Toulouse away). Our other 3 league defeats have seen us lose by 2 points twice and 8 points. Like others have said, we aren't getting blown away by teams and it sort of feels like we are the masters of our downfall by losing so narrowly. Cut out the self-inflicted errors and mistakes and these narrow loses will hopefully turn into wins.
I agree with all that. It's so frustrating when losses are down to things where we aren't learning. One day we'll get through a game without mucking up receiving the ball from a kick off or by needlessly being forced into touch or dropping the ball and then compounding it by giving away a penalty. When we manage that we'll win those close games because it's those things that are killing us.
I'm still worried about our left side defence too, especially with Armitage now out. I can't help but think that if we'd given Tindall a contract he'd be going well outside Armitage at centre (his best postition) with Gill and Taufua as back up, but that ship sailed long ago - sorry to keep harping on but we left ourselves way too short of options in the outside backs.