By Alan Carter
January 26 2005

As far as I know Steve Diamond has never said "Rugby is not Rocket Science", but it is the type of quote our coach favours. The problem is that Sunday's game appeared to turn into rocket science, though I'm sure Professor Pillinger would probably disagree with me on that point. Given the similarities between our fate and that of Beagle 2, I'm not sure that we were not playing the game like it was rocket science.

Below are just some of the quotes attributed to our coach Steve Diamond following Sunday's game against London Irish.

"Jackson is a 90% goalkicker, so we decided to keep faith and not change our kicker, ...
Obviously with the benefit of hindsight, it wasn't the best thing to do."

"Our inability to take three points on a regular basis cost us the game."

"We have a top-class kicker in the side, and he should be kicking his goals. He's had an off day, and we have to deal with that. But he can't do any more practice than he already does."


The main problem has already pointed out by Steve Diamond was that we could not kick our goals. Given the sublime performance of the London Irish fly-half, former Saracens player, Mark Mapletoft and Glen Jackson inability to kick his goals we were left needing converted tries just to stay in the game. This along, with Glen's not kicking his goals, meant that when we got the penalties rather than even attempting to go for the possible 3 points on offer we needed to kick to touch and win our resulting line out to try and score a try. Because Glen had missed under what would be normal circumstances 'sitters', and our choice of keeping faith with our kicker, we needed to score under the posts in order to give Glen the best chance of converting the try. In order to score that try, which was not forthcoming, we had to camp in the opposition 22 and defend their 22 metre line as if it was our try line whilst trying to score that elusive try.

The simple fact is that the team put pressure on itself, and our tactics were being determined by our kicker’s lapses in kicking his goals. Hindsight is a good thing, unfortunately it is the job of the coach to have foresight as well, and be able to re-act to situations on the field has they occur.

The question on every body’s lips must be why wasn't somebody else given the kicking duties in the second half? By which time I suspect the majority of Sarrie supporters had noticed that Glen was having a nightmare of a game in respect to his kicking.

We had Thomas Castaignede, Mark Bartholomeusz and later Kevin Sorrell on the field and Nicky Little on the bench, all of which can kick if need be. They may not be 90% goal kickers, but they could not have done any worse than current incumbent in that game.

The question of whether Glen Jackson should have be substituted or merely replaced as kicker is a mute point, and depends upon things like what does he bring to the side that no other player replacing him in the fly-half role would bring. This could be simple things like our game plan is built around him.

I hope for his sake, and our sake the Glen Jackson gets his kicking sorted out fast because the London Irish game proves we need a consistent kicker. Now if his kicking problems are down to playing in different conditions than New Zealand, I seem to recall that Michael Lynagh offered to do some kicking coaching if required by the club on an ad hoc basis, and as Mr Lynagh is somebody who made the successful transition from Southern Hemisphere to Northern Hemisphere kicking, I would suggest that if we have not done so the club think about accepting Michael Lynagh's offer with respect to Glen and our other would be kickers.

There is already a thread running called Flanders Mare, but I want to talk about another Flanders Mire, that of the Somme. About fifty years before the First World War, there was the American Civil War which gave us a foretaste of some of the horror of trench warfare. During that war a Union general called Sherman order his troops to carry out a full frontal attack against a fortified position, which led to a massacre of his troops. Sherman never apologised or admitted he was wrong, but he never committed his troops to a full frontal attack again. Unfortunately for Europe the military at the time ignored the lessons of the American Civil War because European troops fight in the open and don't hide behind cover or build trenches.

I just hope that our coaches and players learn from the experience of our kicker having a bad day at the office, and make the necessary changes in a 'timely' manner rather than letting events overtake them. Like Sherman we need our coaches to learn from their mistakes and not repeat them.


So Rugby is not rocket science, but we played it like it was.