The opening round of the Aviva Premiership was a record-breaking one. Gloucester’s 6-53 loss to Northampton Saints was their heaviest defeat ever in the league, while Exeter’s 52-0 demolition job on London Welsh was the first time they had surpassed the half century mark.
It is dangerous to draw too many conclusions from just one round of rugby, but I’m going to do just that anyway.
Much excitement has surrounded both Gloucester and London Welsh in the build-up to this season, albeit within different frames of expectation. The reason for this? They have both recruited extensively, with high profile signings that everyone expects will light up the Premiership.
In time, they may well do so, but for now it’s difficult to see when exactly. Let’s start with Gloucester. They have 14 new players in their squad this season, while perhaps more poignantly 21 players have left the Cherry and Whites. While some of those were squad players, some were vastly experienced heads – the likes of Andy Hazell, Mike Tindall, Jimmy Cowan and James Simpson-Daniel.
The overall effect is turmoil in training and amongst the squad. It doesn’t matter how good your intentions are, or how much ‘team-building’ you do, the fact of the matter is that pre-season is a horrendously short period of time to get to know a big group of new players – especially when a lot of the leaders, the guys who embody the club and make the new guys feel welcome, from years gone by have left too. Anyone who has played rugby at any level knows it takes time to integrate into a squad and start to feel comfortable.
Gloucester played like a group of strangers – their defensive line was riddled with holes and their communication when they had the ball was poor. They actually only played five new faces in their starting team at Northampton, but the communication and organisation was so bad because they don’t know each other properly as a squad yet, and that will be reflected in training.
At London Welsh last season, a tight-knit group of players – arguably overachievers – pulled together to win promotion against the odds, up against a Bristol side who had many more stellar names. Having won promotion, they’ve ditched many of the guys who were integral to that push and brought in 26 new players, some of whom certainly fall into the ‘stellar names’ category.
Last time when they got promoted they didn’t have adequate time to recruit – this time it seems like they’ve overreacted by signing every Premiership journeyman and his dog. Yes, these are old heads with plenty of experience of the game, but are they going to do a better job than the potentially slightly less talented or experienced group that won promotion, but a group that knew each other inside out? Arguably not.
A decent start is so important for morale when you’re expected to be embroiled in a relegation battle – Newcastle’s three wins in the Premiership last year all came before the end of October, and that was enough to see them survive. By contrast, Worcester had to wait until the end of March for their first win. At that point they were almost relegated already and morale was in the toilet.
“Team spirit” is an intangible – it not something that you can learn, or coach, in pre-season. It is something that is created by playing together over a period of time. Never was this more obvious than with Gloucester and London Welsh’s opponents at the weekend.
Northampton and Exeter had quiet summers on the recruitment front, so have a group of players that have essentially been together for at least a year – most of them longer. They just know each other’s game so much better. When someone makes a break, they know where the supporting runner will be. Some of the offloads the two sides threw were breathtaking, and the reason they felt comfortable doing so is because they were certain a player would be there in support – as the commentators pointed out at the time, when that certainty is there, it’s actually a relatively low-risk play.
It is nigh on impossible to bring together a completely new group of players in the space of one summer and expect everything to fall into place. Both Gloucester and London Welsh will be much better sides by the end of the season, but will it be too late by then? Gloucester will come good, but after just one round I already fear for Welsh.
As we meander into the subject of team spirit, a quick mention of Munster. Has the leaked memo about players’ weaknesses and pecking orders in certain positions had more of a detrimental effect than we thought? A home loss to Edinburgh at Thomond Park is not a brilliant start for a club that should be challenging for the title.
That aside, what a weekend of PRO12 action it was. Last minute comebacks, some exceptional tries, and – perhaps most importantly – finally something to smile about for Welsh fans as their regions took two wins and a draw from the opening round.
And finally, a word on refereeing. Many articles have been penned this week after the standard of refereeing in the Rugby Championship at the weekend left something to be desired, most along the lines of ‘We don’t like referee bashing, but…’.
Referees have a tough job, no doubt about it, and I’m not going to wade into the murky world of things like scrum and breakdown interpretation – they know much more about the law there than you or I do, so we trust them to get it right more often than not. Even Habana’s high tackle was, to the letter of the law, the correct call – it’s not about intention, it’s about where the contact is made.
But Senatore’s disallowed try? That was beyond the pale. Anyone with two eyes could see it was clearly a charge down and the try should have stood. Not good enough.
By Jamie Hosie
Follow Jamie on Twitter: @jhosie43
Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images
One reply on “Recruitment vs Retention: contrasting emotions on opening weekend”
Correct me if I am wrong but when Welsh were relegated last time around they were’nt bottom by a huge margin were they?
It seemed to me over the summer that it was a massive gamble bringing in all these “journeymen and their dogs” over the established and presumably hungry players who won them the deserved promotion (speaking as a Bristol fan).
These imports were clearly available for a reason.
I do wonder how the logic of this was spelt out. How does one decide that this winger (Stegmann?) is better than that winger simply because he has played in the Premiership before, and is now surplus to requirements.