In a week when the country appears to be descending back down into Christmas cancelling Covid related misery, the only current crumb of comfort offered to rugby starved Bears fans is the fact that the Premiership is rolling back into town and we won’t be playing any Welsh or French teams next weekend. After a fortnight of European woulda, coulda, shoulda the hope is that there will be at least some sort of live rugby for fans to digest on Boxing Day and thanks to the UK’s vaccination rates, preferably in person rather than via BT Sport.
The hope.
Either way, this enforced absence from live action has at least afforded fans the opportunity for a bit of naval gazing and a chance to reflect on the direction the season has taken so far.
To coin a phrase, it’s been a bit of a curate’s egg. Generally bad but with a bit of good.
After the fairly simple narrative of last season when there was a statistically significant correlation between game plan and positive result, the shattering loss to Quins in the semi-final and the subsequent underwhelming start this time round does make it feel like we are, to some extent, living the plotline of Joseph Heller’s famous novel, ‘Catch 22’. By this I mean that the only answer to our lacklustre performances is denied by the circumstances inherent in the problem itself. In other words, we have been sold the idea that the ‘system is the solution’ but too many times this season if feels that the very opposite is true. The way we play to win is the very process that leads us to lose, as our laudable, yet pathological desire to keep hold of the ball as much as possible only results in possession being relinquished on a regular basis. It feels like that for every exciting exit out of our 22 we knock it on, for every line break we turn it over and for every decision made at a crucial moment we make the wrong one. In short, we persist with a style of play that seems to demand an unrealistic level of accuracy for it to work and consequently we continue to get the same result. The very definition of madness.
But why is this? And why now?
Why aren’t we scoring tries anymore, why aren’t we making fewer errors when the post-match mantra is always to learn and to improve, and why do the opposition appear to find it easy to work us out?
The only predictable thing about the Bears at the moment is that we are now becoming too predictable and if we aren’t careful we will find ourselves in a literal no-win situation whereby we spin round and around like foolish puppies chasing our tales. Amiable and enthusiastic but lacking the gravitas and game management intelligence to really cut it with the big dogs and now that ‘learnings’ seem to have been quietly retired from post-match interviews the new media mantra is that we aren’t ‘a million miles away’ but like a ‘bad day in the office’ this can mean everything and nothing. We aren’t a million miles away from the bottom of the table either.
So, with nearly a third of the season gone the one thing that is crystal clear is that that we aren’t in a league position that we neither hoped for nor expected (apart from being above Bath of course), and this has understandably stimulated a fair amount of chatter and debate on the various fan forums and social media platforms, not least the Bears Beyond The Gate podcast (made by fans for fans!).
Opinions inevitably vary but it’s a classic glass half empty, half full scenario. On one hand there are some who are beginning to question the whole system, suggesting that it is too rigid and too reliant on a level of accuracy that we just don’t have whilst on the other there is the feeling that our stifling start is simply due to a combination of big players missing, a general lack of confidence and a bit of bad luck and things will come good once we get a fully fit squad on the park and chisel out a few wins.
In many ways the last run out at Kingsholm showed evidence of both these arguments and wasn’t, perhaps, quite a soul-destroying a defeat as some we have experienced so far this this season. With the big guns back there were times when Bristol packed the sort of punch to which we became accustomed last year and at 10-15 with momentum on our side and an easy penalty in front of the sticks on offer it really did feel like the tide was on the turn. However, when Harry Randall decided to take the quick tap to Semi who was marmalised and turned over, it was then that the game began to ebb away as Gloucester’s confidence flooded back. From then on, they fully deserved their win as the Bears whimpered their way to the final whistle.
Again, poor decision making when clarity was required.
However, prior to this, the first half had been a scrappy affair and we had been up for the fight although lord knows what the residents of the Shed must have thought when they saw the number of tights on display in our backline, prancing around the astroturf stage like Nureyev at the Bolshoi. At times it felt we had all tuned into a recording of the Nutcracker Suite with the fear that Semi Radradra would make his long-awaited comeback wearing a tutu and tiara.
That said, we were in the game and scrapping, which was a marked improvement on the feeble front row fare served up against Northampton Saints and despite conceding the dodgy maul try there was a feeling of real optimism when the flying Fijian appeared for the second half. In true superstar fashion he announced his return direct from the kick-off with a catch, step and offload, the global patent to which only he has ownership, and although the magical moment was somewhat ruined by Piston Purdy who shanked an attempted kick into the welcoming udders of the Shed it still marked a glorious ten minutes of free running that we had all been craving. Everyone seemed lifted and after breaks from Piutau, O’Conor and Randall, Callum Sheedy finally found his mojo by delivering a delicious cross kick that was gobbled up by Henry Purdy who vanquished the painful memory of his earlier shank with the easiest of touchdowns. With the set piece looking solid and our big Antipodean wage earners all on the pitch together for the first time since the horror of Bristanbul, everything seemed aligned for our return to the free scoring big time.
But the fact that the same old issues returned in the final quarter means that questions about both on-pitch management and pre-match preparation still need to be asked and the way that Chris Harris was gifted his try when Mark Atkinson executed a grubber into the vast amount of space in front of our goal posts that was literally begging to be filled was a serious system failure. Why an experienced player like Charles Piutau was left stranded out on the right wing when you would have thought he’d been defending the more central area does lead to the worrying conclusion that he had been told to go there. And if this is the case it suggests that the game plan sent down from above overrides individual game sense on the pitch. From that moment on the momentum swung back the way of Gloucester and the game was gone.
In that instance the system was the problem and not the solution. And if that is the case then we could have more serious issues that we might initially have thought. What if Pat has got it all wrong? What if we keep on losing? What if everthing falls apart? However, whilst there is no indication that any of these things are remotely true professional sport is fundamentally a results game. Getting Pat to change his approach may be like asking Da Vinci to change Mona Lisa’s smile but in the end the win/lose column will always be the final arbiter of success.
So, from which cup should we all be drinking as we resume our Premiership campaign?
The reality, like most things in life, is somewhere in the middle. A glass that is hopefully ‘filling’ you may say. There is no doubt that we seem to have lost the attacking edge that served us so well last season and this may be down to being a bit predictable. However, we must remember that our game is about playing fast paced, exciting, ball-in-hand rugby that by its nature leads to both risk and reward. But, with senior players coming back into fitness and form, a tweaking of the game plan to be slightly more pragmatic and perhaps the insertion of a bit more grunt into our performances the hope must be that we can regain some momentum and make a sustained dash for at least the top half of the table. There is plenty of time and although we have three tough fixtures to come in Leicester, Exeter and Enya’s favorite, Sale away, a cheeky win against high flying Tigers would provide a bit of festive cheer for the Ashton Gate faithful. With the injury time scrum shenanigans from last season’s encounter at Welford Road still fresh in the opposition’s minds, and a social media video announcing Ellis Genge’s return apparently sending most Leicester fans into hubristic cardiac arrest, I’m sure it is going to be a tasty encounter that will hopefully send the visitors from the East Midlands into cold turkey and shake the Bears out of their temporary hibernation.
Filthy Rig 