Lead Rugby Consultant Steve Diamond spoke to the media today ahead of Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership match against London Irish at the Brentford Community Stadium (kick-off 3.00pm).
Here’s what Steve had to say:
On the news that Niall Annett and Ethan Waller will be leaving the club at the end of the season.
- Both have been great stalwarts for Warriors, Niall for eight years and Ethan for five. They are both centurions and it will be sad to see them move to pastures new.
- We offered them both contracts but they have chosen to take other options and we fully respect their decisions.
- I had a good chat with them about it and it’s the right thing for themselves and their families at this stage of their careers.
- Niall will be going to Bath with his old mentor Ed Griffiths and Ethan is effectively going home to Northampton. Worcester has been his home for a long time but he is going back to play with his brother, Alex, again.
- We thank them both for the outstanding service they have given Warriors and we wish them both the very best for the future.
On the Harlequins performance
- We had a period in the second half where we fell off tackles a little bit.
- There was a bit of fatigue, they ran us around a bit. The ball was in play for 40 minutes when the average for a Premiership match is 30 minutes, so we had ten minutes more and we felt that.
- We tried to do good things with ball in hand. The young half-backs played well and Seb Atkinson played really well on his first Premiership start, but we fell off a little bit on our kick-chase which allowed Harlequins to break the line, put us under pressure and, ultimately, score.
- In a perverse way I was relieved that we didn’t get a bonus point because it would have papered over a crack.
- We don’t need to paper cracks. We need to build a squad, understand what we are doing. They understand it and it’s now the application of that knowledge and getting better at it. I think we will definitely do that.
On London Irish
- I’ve only been to the new ground once and that was the first game with Sale Sharks last season and we had a good result down there.
- Irish are the best form team at the moment. They have a good hard-working pack of forwards, some class players in the pack and their backline is electric.
- They are the best side in the competition after 15 phases so they don’t want the ball off the field.
- Their back three can run it from everywhere so we don’t want to get into that kind of game with them.
- I’m not suggesting that we play a set piece game but if we kick it then we have to catch the receiver with the ball or catch the ball ourselves.
- If the ball does go off we have to be prepared for their set piece game from lineouts etc.
- Their progress is a fair reflection of the work that Declan Kidney has done there.
- They have recruited well, brought in some massive names who have bought into the London irish ethos.
Is your focus on results or performance at the moment?
- At the moment results are irrelevant to me a little bit. I am just working out the full extent of what we have got here, what we need to reshuffle and bring in.
- Can we get better? Of course we can. Have we got players coming back to fitness? Yes, we have. Will that make a difference? Yes, it will.
- If we get all things right and the availability of certain senior players it will add to what we are doing.
- The better the player, the easier it is to fit into a system. The system we are trying to create in defence is being together.
- There were occasions last week when we were fantastically together but we would miss a tackle. At this level you can’t afford to miss more than one tackle a game per person.
Injuries
- Willi Heinz is available for selection this week.
- Duhan van der Merwe is back from Scotland duty this weekend.
- Kyle Hatherell and Owen Williams should be back over the next week or two.
- Ollie Lawrence is rehabbing from a hamstring injury and we hope he will be back before the end of the season.