Lead Rugby consultant Steve Diamond spoke to the media today ahead of Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership match against Leicester Tigers at Mattioli Woods Welford Road (kick-off 3.00pm).
Here’s what Steve had to say:
On the performance against Northampton Saints
- There was great endeavour but we made two or three basic defensive errors midfield in phase play which led to breakaway tries and we didn’t convert our opportunities in attack.
- If you look at it statistically, apart from points for and against, you would have thought we had won the game with territory, possession, line breaks, tackles made, passes made, metres made. But they count for nothing.
- What I always planned to do is bring it down to basics, cut the plays down a bit, make sure everyone understands their role on the field and, over a period of time, we will improve. So I’m frustrated more than disappointed.
- We have to get our basic defence plan in place and, when we get the ball, we have to keep it. On Saturday we gave three or four penalties in the opposition 22 when we were in attack.
- Those are freakish stats. We are not thinking clearly under pressure. What we have to do is replicate those scenarios in training.
- We have got buy-in from everybody, the coaches and players, it’s a case of doing the drills and repping it and making sure it becomes second nature to them.
- They reckon that to be good at something you have to do 10,000 hours, We don’t have those hours. I have got them for 16 hours of their 168 hours a week, so I have got ten per cent of their lives.
On the defensive lapses
- It’s an understanding of role and an understanding of the opposition, what they are trying to do and how they are trying to manipulate you.
- From what I have seen over the last two months we have had failings in that area that are similar so it’s a common occurrence.
- It’s people not buying into what their role is and that is part of the job that myself and Jonny Bell are working on at the moment.
- It’s making sure there’s an understanding and then implementing that plan.
- It will take two or three weeks to get it repped but we have shown a real desire to understand it and the session yesterday was more intense and a marked improvement on what I have seen in the last six weeks or so.
- It’s not reinventing the wheel it’s putting the basics in place from certain scenarios. To defend from lineout and scrum is reasonably easy but to defend if you are sucking in diesel after eight or nine phases and you are a tighthead prop you have got to understand how to get into the line and defend.
- It’s about being connected and we are not connected a lot of the time in phase play.
New signings
- The most important thing I have got to do is to make sure that the players who stay here and who we re-contract are able to make the club a highly competitive unit.
- The easiest thing to do is to go and find four players. They are there already.
- We are in a market place where this is a time where you don’t want to be a player because the salary cap has come down by a third, wages have come down and there’s a glut of players on the market. So finding new players is easy.
- Anyone who is in the job I do knows that. Working out the wheat from the chaff here is difficult and I need time to do that.
- Players are put to me every single day. I look at them, we put them in a file and we do an analysis on them if we are looking at that position.
- At the moment I am more interested in working with the players that are here and making sure that they are here for the right reasons and they can do the job that we want them to do. It’s going to take six to eight weeks for me to do that.
On Leicester
- They played Sale, who are very good side, at the weekend. We face them both over the next two weeks.
- Those are daunting tasks. If you don’t get your basics in place and you can’t fulfil your duty then those sides will run away with the fixture so we need a big concerted effort over the next few weeks.
- Steve Borthwick has done a brilliant job at Leicester. He’s taken them from nowhere, he’s enhanced the squad minimally.
- He’s worked with a lot of players who were there, like I will be doing. He took his time to decide who wanted to keep and who he wanted to let go.
No Duhan van der Merwe or Rory Sutherland this week
- Duhan and Rory are two inspirational players for us but other teams are similarly affected. They have players of international quality away.
- You have to learn to be without those players for ten weeks a year and one of those periods is coming up for us.
What are your immediate targets?
- It would be easy to say win some games. But before we win some games we have to get the performances right.
- We have certainly got the skillset in a lot of areas. We have to make sure that we turn up with the right attitude and with the knowledge, skill and motivation we will get the performances.
- That will come in performances before it comes in the results.
- I have come in here at the right time. We have a good squad of players and if we can gel quickly then we will be a highly combative force in the next month and moving into the rest of the season
Injuries
- Fin Smith and Andrew Kitchener are going through the return-to-play protocols
- Jamie Shillcock had a hip flexor injury but he is back in training.
- Sam Lewis has a dead leg and won’t be back this weekend
On Scott Baldwin’s release on compassionate grounds
- It’s very sad that Scott has left us. The owners, players, coaches and myself send our best wishes are with Scott and his family. These things are more important than rugby.