Yorkshire Carnegie
Time to Pull the Plug Leeds!
A Viking in all but name.
By Wildwillie
January 6 2011
The Leeds Carnegie players travel to Bath this weekend having finally ended an absolutely dismal sequence of league games without a win. Is this the start of the revival (or Great Escape II as it is known)? Back to back league wins would go a long way to mending the shredded nerves of their small, but devoted, band of supporters. Well stranger things have happened!
The season has thus far followed a similar pattern to the previous one with the Tykes reprising their role of plucky northern upstarts trying to secure a toehold in the top flight of English rugby. What the dwindling band of Tykes supporters find so galling is that the plucky south-western upstarts have leapfrogged us and established their AP credentials in less than half a season. Perhaps Exeter, having had no experience of being a yo-yo team, had not read the rules concerning the performances expected of a newly promoted team. Well there was no need as we appear to have them ingrained in our collective psyche and have dithered and faltered from the very start of pre-season training.
The practice of chopping and changing the team was again implemented this season with similar consequences for our league position. Finally we are getting a settled selection policy and performance has improved. The experimentation with the make-up of the team has left many of us perplexed and bewildered. The abandoning of the style of play which kept us up last season cannot be seen as anything less than an unmitigated disaster.
Have we left it too late? The management team have had a massive wake-up call. I think that they still have enough time to put things right. The majority of the players who kept us up last season are still at the club. Ok there is no Eirik but Denton is a Viking in all but name. Has the win against Glaws given the squad enough of a confidence booster to turn effort into points? Are we still making too many unforced errors? Well we will find out this weekend. Last season we got a right tonking down at the Rec. This time we desperately need something from the game. We have one or two players at the top of their game. This weekend we need twenty-three of them to be there.
I would not expect there to be many changes from the side that won last Saturday. The side should pick itself. The only question for me is MacDonald or Gomez. Juan is the more effective scrummager but Mac has the greater mobility in the loose. If the side can improve its performance from last weekend then the Bath players will have their work cut out to get a winning bonus point. A win for us this weekend is a dream too far but an LBP is well within our capabilities. Bath by five.
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06/01/2011 19:20
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Good Luck Lads
Bath 8
Leeds 10
Matt Holt try at the death. Gordon Ross at his imperious best.
We owe 'em!
Miserati - and Proud to be!
Zandra YaPoI
YaPoI - Yorkshire and Proud of It
'proficiscor in una'
