Shilly shines but 54% shocks

What a game!  Before kick off Aidan told me it would end 32-29 - I was happy with that thought, little did I know how close he would be.  34-34 certainly got the heart pumping!

Right from the off the key clash was meant to be between our young guns and the Sale talent, but we were certainly caught sleeping and it took 17 minutes for Shillcock to shine, sadly followed by a missed conversion by Lamb.

Shillcock announced his arrival to senior rugby against Bath following Humphreys putting on a performance against Glaws the week before.  Watching them yesterday you  would think they were both seasoned professionals.

This is a very exciting time for Worcester Warriors fans.

Who won the key battle?

I think Perry won this hands down.  Having seen Odogwu in a Cavs game before I know what he is capable of and he did not show this yesterday.  Perry ran well, defended well, scored yet another try and took yet another step to claiming a first team shirt for the foreseeable future.

The forwards were once again outstanding.  Line out and scrum functioned all the way through until the last few minutes.  Schonert, Annett and Ruskin, for 60 minutes didn't really put a foot wrong.  We really do need to announce soon that Val has signed a new contract, what a player!  Who next month qualifies for England.  If he keeps playing like this I can see him certainly getting a Saxons call up, if not an elite cap.

DOC & Barry controlled every aspect of their game, though boy band wannabe DOC did seem to spend a lot of time sorting his newly grown locks and getting them out of his face.

I am a massive fan of GJ and I think he does his job impeccably but on his 250th Premiership appearance I can see why the growing call from fans is for Phil to not only start every week but lead the team.

Alfie is rapidly becoming a fans favourite.  Not only did he continue his barn storming runs, he didn't get any red cards whenever he raised his arm whilst carrying the ball.

I may have mentioned before that we are missing a certain Francois Hougaard, the man that seems to have the ability to turn us from losers into winners.  Jonny Arr had a great game.  Still a bit slower at the breakdown than I would like but was steady as ever.  Another surprise package for me is Luke Baldwin.  I will be honest, when I watched him play for Bristol I was never that impressed, but game on game he is playing very well.  Tends to up the pace without throwing risky passes or making rash decisions.  Maybe it is time for him to get a start ahead of Hougaard's return.

Is it really that hard to say to Ryan Lamb - Play at 10, use your skills to control the game and open up defences BUT pass the ball to others when it comes to kicking from the tee?

Any player with season statistics of:

Should not be sending Tweets like this, immediately after a game that could be described as lost due to missed kicks:

Facebook and Twitter covered this enough, but it is fair to say that I only read 3 respondents (1 from a Sale fan who actually tweeted that we should get rid of Lamb) that tried to defend his comments in any way.

Having read a few articles on the game it was clear that we are making progress, but that only making 54% of kicks could be the difference between staying up and looking up or fighting for survival.

Mr Hogg has also alluded to the problem that is Ryan Lamb

The man can play, he can score and he can make the difference between a win and a loss - the problem is he can make that difference in positive and negative ways in the same game!

One thing I must say (an would have before Tweetgate) Congratulations on hitting 1,000 Premiership points.

If we just increased our kick percentage to 80% this season then we would be in 7th place not 11th and have 9 points not 5.

What can I say about the backs?  Is astonishing to strong a word?

I really do love what I am seeing.  From my pre-season tip for player of the season Olivier to our new young stars Humphreys and Shillcock to a man they are firing.  We expected big performances on our nice new pitch, but considering we are yet to see Hougaard, Heem or Pennell on plastic, other than as a water boy, I think have have been given a treat so far.

Mr Vesty has made a point of letting the players "play what they see" and not just stick to the coached moves and it seems to be working.  My only fear is that playing what they see does tend to mean that we have nobody at full back during attacks and we could be at risk when playing teams like Wasps with pace to burn and solid accurate kickers.

In normal terms the season has not started well: loss, draw, loss & draw but watching the games means it feels more like: smashed, cheated, busted & robbed.  To come away from 2 draws feeling like we "should" have won, even more so should have had a 5 pointer - that to me is progress.

Next week is Falcons - our first "Must Win" of the season.  At home, we are in form and scoring points.  They are doing well and getting wins to our draws but they are not scoring, so Shillcock, Coops and Humphreys get your running boots and and lets get that illusive win.

As a final note, since when does anybody have to survey the entire fan base to convey the sentiment to our players that we are fully behind them?

Come On You Warriors!

We Are Going to Beat Sale

Why can't we dream?

How much would it take to get the much needed win this weekend, against Sale?

We have been so close but need that last inch, is it luck? fitness? A new tactic? 

Forwards play a massive role in every game, ours have been on fire this season.

CSW took a knock Monday night, but has been showing the kind of form he gave glimpses of, all those seasons ago before his 2 season lay off.

GJ might be back for this game.  He seems to be a bit of a Marmite captain.  Pretty much splitting the fans 50/50.  All seem to rate him as a player but not as a captain.  The majority of the dissenters pointing to Phil Dowson as the rightful owner of the captains arm band.

 

Annett was injured at Bath but has been our outstanding forward so far this season.  His lineout throwing has been better than we have seen for a while from our hookers, his open play is brilliant.  He may not off load like Creevy but the net results are the same, he rewards the forwards by scoring tries.

Mamma is fitting in very well, obviously he had experience paying for us on loan last season and when he went back to Bristol they value him so much he went straight back into their team.  A great player to watch and compliments the riches we now have in the back row.

Why was DOC left out of the Sarries game?  Nobody seems to be able to answer this, but since he has returned to the team he has played even better than last season and now seems to be able to control himself and not get so many cards.

Great news that we have signed Nick Schonert for the future.  Such a talented prop and a true Warrior, he literally has his passion for the club written all over his face.

Backs, at Worcester - we have always been almost there, surely this season, once the injuries end, we are there?

Decimated by injury and Hougaard being called up to SA the backs are still firing.  We are attacking and scoring like no previosu start to a season in the top flight.

Humphries' arrival in the absence of Pennell and Heem who are not too far away from returning to training has really highlighted the work Vesty and co are carrying out behind the scenes.  He always looked a handy player but now he seems to be delivering on the big stage.

Shillcock, as I have previosly written, has a great future.  Stepping in as our sub 9 in the finals, moving to 10 and now finding his feet in the 15 shirt.  He is really going to be pushing Ben Howard to step up and show that he can fulfil what he has always promised.

Pre-season I predicted Olivier would have a massive season for us - Such a leader on and off the pitch.  One player told me that he does his basics so well, gives the players around him so much confidence that they can go out and perform to their best, just because they know he is there.  His world cup winning class is really starting to shine through.

T'eo has had bit of a tepid start to the season.  Maybe Olivier is shining too bright at the moment.  For me, he is clearly an exciting and talented player I just do not think he has found his feet in the Premiership yet.

Our new pitch is built for running rugby and we are going to get that this season.  Vesty is giving the backs a bit of freedom, this should help Lamb and Olivier play to their strengths.  I remember during the 2015/16 preseason Vesty and Ryan said that although they train set moves they also like the players to "play what is in front of them" though this was not evident in our games last season, this season it is.

The medical team must be ran ragged with the amount of players out, they probably have more players to work with than Hogg at the moment.

Fans - We really do have such a big part to play, especially at home.  We should be targeting points in every game at home and against Sale I think we should be targeting a win.

Can we get the much needed win this weekend?

If our starting XV was:

Ruskin

Annett

Schonert

DOC

Cavubati

Dowson

Mama

GJ

Hougaard

Lamb

Vuna

T'eo

Olivier

Heem

Pennell

Then I would really fancy some decent money on my daughter's second 18-0 prediction of the season.  Potentially 7 of those guys will not start, so we face a different prospect.

This season shows that Simon Cross has our defence nailed down, but maybe we are putting in too much of an effort in the first half and then lose our legs or maybe Hogg just doesn't have a plan B and opposition teams are able to counter us from half time.  I wish I knew the answer.

If we keep playing with the passion I have seen so far this season then I feel we can get a win.  If we take any further injuries or do not get some of our players back soon then it could be a very dark Christmas looking up the table at Bristol and Falcons rather than down. 

In coming weeks I will be going through some of our game statistics and comparing to our Premiership rivals, thanks to the guys at Ultimate Rugby Please Visit Here I will be able to dig down through all of our key statistics and keep up to date with rugby news from all around the globe.

Bath vs Warriors - A tale of Two Halves

So close yet so far.

I guess another way of saying it, what do we have to do in order to get our first win of the season?

Personally I had a weekend away celebrating my eldest son's 15th birthday climbing walls and running assault courses in mud and water, so I did not get to live the game blow by blow, but did follow tweets and very delayed notifications from the BBC.

I for one was in the hope, based on the half time lead that we would finally win at the Rec and would claim our first win of the season.  Sadly injuries seem to have bitten us once again.

What was of more influence following the half time restart - 3 substitutions due to injuries or some interesting refereeing decision?

The story of our season to date seems to be that of challenging the best with the youngest of our players.

It is common knowledge that we are missing some of our key players, Pennell, Heem, Hougaard, GJ and many others.  That kind of quality and experience missing from any team, outside of the top 4, would be crippling; but our young replacements are shining through.

Perry Humphries obviously caught the eye last weekend against Gloucester.  Replacing T'eo and playing the game of his life.  Who would have thought that would have been followed by Shillcock making his premiership starting debut and looking every bit the experienced professional.  

In times gone by Pennell getting injured was fairly frequent, Ben Howard would step in, play pretty well but then Chris would come back and all was in safe hands again.  This time, we have got used to Chris not getting injured anymore so him being out for months is painful. 

Usually this is where Ben would step up and save the day, but he is injured too.  In came Willison, who sadly is not a full back.  This is when Perry was brought in and was outstanding.

Really did take his opportunity.

Jamie Shillcock, you may remember had to take his history A-Level before being put on the bench for the final against Bristol, making him our 4th choice scrum half.  He has since played age group and representative rugby at 10 and now seems to have slotted into the 15 position very well.

He has certainly grown into his shirt since the Championship final, shows some of the 9 tenacity, can kick like a 10 but also seems to cope well under high balls and can certainly run.  The funny thing is that Perry playing so well at full back  last week and getting a start on the wing has given Shillcock this opportunity to shine and shine he has done.

As a team we are second from bottom.  We managed a great first 40 against Sarries which ended in a big defeat.  We put in a great first half against Gloucester, which ended in a draw and we had an amazing first 40 against a team we beat rarely at a ground we are yet to win at - sadly we lost without even a bonus point. 

The irony is, most fans seem happy with the season so far.

Before the season started there were massive influxes of doom and gloom.  After losing to the best side in our hemisphere you would think we had been relegated already, but since then positive thoughts have returned to the Sixways faithful and I for one love it!

Newcastle are going to be a pain for us this season, Quins seem to have dropped into our dog fight and Bristol are taking a beating - they are not the next London Welsh but they are keeping the gap between us and relegation wider than some had feared.

All is looking good so far this season and Hogg should be pleased with the performances but lets not kid ourselves - a win is massively needed. 4 points this weekend and we start looking up again.  Another defeat and we will continue to look over our shoulder at the Bristol results for months to come.

Come on You Warriors 

The Magic Number 23

Warriors vs Gloucester Did Not Disappoint 

Friday night [overly bright] lights and we witnessed a pretty spectacular game – for all the right reasons but sadly for a few of the wrong ones.

This is why I love rugby.  A massive shout out to my colleague, fellow Evertonian and all round top bloke Andy Price.  The man is a die hard Gloucester fan, wears Cherry & White glasses and loves Kingsholm but in the spirit of our sport he was painted up for the night.

Well done Andy!

Lets just get it out there – I didn’t at the time, I didn’t when I was having to watch the replay on my phone because the big screen broke and having seen it again – I still do not think that was a red card.

My only other comment on this is:

Same game different outcome! [The elbow hitting Lamb's head]

The screen and Elenex light display were way too bright and then broke.  The queues for beer were terrible.  I gave up twice and missed the first 15 minutes of the game trying to get a beer in the East stand.  The 2^nd time I gave up was because I actually witnessed the only three bar staff, with a queue of say 50 people ALL trying to pick up a pasty from the oven, at the same time – meaning not one person was pouring drinks for a good couple of minutes!

Right, that’s the bad bit out of the way.

I love the new cups and yes I fell for it and have kept a few, adding to the club funds by £10, though 4 of those were found left behind after the game.

Magic 23

Perry Humphreys, 23^rd Man – what a star performance?!

I am certain I am not the only Warrior fan who was less than impressed when realising that T’eo had been replaced at half time, but what a 40 minutes this lad had.

After the game I had a great experience, talking to a lovely lady at the bar when my daughter [5 year old] came to the bar to remind me that SHE is playing rugby Sunday, to this I explained to said lady that I was very proud of my daughter taking up rugby at such a young age – to which to turned to me with a pint in her hand saying “imagine how proud you will be when you get to buy your 21 year old son a pint after playing in the Premiership” – It is fair to say Perry’s family are of the same opinion as me, he had a blinding game!

Gloucester, scored 23 – Against 14 men

I can’t really fault Gloucester, they played well and didn’t leave any points on the pitch.

Worcester, scored 23 – 50% kick rate is killing us already!

The Performance - It really does make me feel vindicated.  

Following the Sarries defeat it was pretty hard to be a positive voice in the cloud of despair.  I was of the opinion that we had played well enough and showed signs of a well organised side - just that we were playing against the best club side in the Northern Hemisphere, if not the world!

Another player deserving a mention is DOC 

It was reported before the game that Donncha had a point to prove, having been left out of the team to face Sarries and my god did he prove it.

If it wasn't for the performance put in by Perry then Donncha would have got my man of the match.

That Result - Before the game I would have taken a draw.  Following our first half I still can't help but feel cheated.  When asked, Daisy declared Worcester would win 18-0, so that is where the money went.  Yet another example of head being over ruled by the heart.

That was by far our best performance in a long time and if not for a few key things going against us then we would have got the win.

The table after our first two games shows us not to be bottom, but we do have the worst points difference by a long way.  The beating we took from Sarries is going to take long time for us to recover.

23 is a pretty special number.  It is; A prime number, subject of multiple films, thought by the Chinese to be a symbol of sexuality, A holy number for Discordianists and has been used as a lucky shirt number for sports stars like Jordan & Beckam - well now it is My Magic Number, thanks to Perry Humphreys and the rest of the 23 man squad from last night.

What do we need?

We Are Through Week 1 

And we are the only team without any tries, bonus points and/or points on the league table.

Before you panic, this is not a doom & gloom post, it is a general look at what we are missing after week 1 and a look ahead to our M5 derby with Gloucester on Friday night.

Missing

Try scoring opportunities - We did everything but score in open play against Sarries.  Our scrum was solid, our line out mostly worked and our kicking has been worse, but still we did not score.  So why do "people" always say get the set piece right and you will score?

I guess the first response to that is they may not have considered the Sarries Wolf Pack defence. Is it possible that we were not all that bad and that they were just that good?  The general feeling among fans and TV "experts" is that Sarries had a slow start then put 29 points on us once they got going.  

Maybe we were just playing much better than expected and it took them a whole half to beat us?

Even I am not that optimistic but it is food for thought.

Three of our best - Our backs have been talked about all preseason and we were missing three of the highlights; Chris Pennell, Bryce Heem and Francois Hougaard.  

ANY team in the Premiership would miss those three outstanding players.

Answer

Did my second point answer the first?  Have we spent all summer assuming we would be at full strength and not have a plan B?  Is it just really bad luck that Biggs is also injured so we had to play our third / fourth choice winger (Though he played pretty well) Hammond against the European Champions?

Friday Night vs Glaws

I always struggle with an early [in the season] M5 derby, there is nothing riding on it yet.  We both lost in dramatic second half fashion, though I am not sure I could have been so positive if we had lost after leading 31-7 at home.

In the real world I work with a lot of Gloucester fans, some we not too shocked by either of our results at the weekend, but they pretty much all think we can bag a win at home against them.

I am on the Superbru app trying to predict results.  Looking on there it would appear our last 12 games, going back to 2007 have been pretty evenly split

 They have only beaten us once at Sixways so that is good enough for me to predict a win.

What do we need?  

A bit of luck wouldn't go amiss.  Some injury rest-bite would be lovely and for the boys to have some confidence in their ability to play on our new pitch, that would be huge!

We are still going to be missing; Pennell, Heem, Hougaard and now Schonert and maybe GJ.  Very key players in critical positions.

One final thing we could do with - some more of this:

  

45 Positives from a Pretty Negative Day

Some may ask how I can find so many positives from the London Double Header vs Sarries - simply put I have cheated.  42 of the positives are the first half of the match itself.

Being honest, did you really think we were going to beat the current Premiership and European champions?  I thought not.

Did I think a Fiver @ 8/1 was worth a punt? Yes I did.

Did I also cover off my bets, which included an accumulator ruined by Falcons, by betting on Sarries to win?  Yes I did.  Does that make me a bad man?

I always have heart and head battles when it comes to My Worcester Warriors.

Like the new kit.  I love the home shirt, but usually I buy the away shirt first.  When I first looked at the new away shirt I thought it was great, then I took a closer look at the logo and stitching and I can't get to grips with it.

The logo looks inverted and when you are watching on TV or looking from any sort of distance you cannot read the Worcester Warriors, within the logo.  As a side note, Three Pears on the back is hardly decipherable at any point when watching on the TV.

In this shot of Lozowski scoring against us the club logo looks inverted on the shirts and the shorts.

A simple change back to the blue logo (also for the Under Armour logo) and we have a really nice shirt.

Sadly when I tried to point this out to Jim O'Toole it all got a bit out of context:

White and / or yellow on yellow just doesn't work [for me] but it is OK as I have already invested in a very nice Warriors training jacket in black and green.

So, 45 positives... the first 42 are the first half of the match yesterday.  Brilliant start and having read about the Falcons win the night before I fancied we would not be too far behind them at the end of week 1.

I have no idea what happened at half time but a different team came out for the second half.

Is it possible, having seen a 31-7 lead turn into defeat, that Laurie and Carl attended the same Halt Time Talk training session down at Castle Grim?

Within 2 minutes of the second half our heads were down, we were trying all sorts of unstructured defence, attacks and flicks and playing straight into Sarries hands.  The exact opposite of the first half.

There were many positives from the first half, but I have chosen two front rowers as my player positives - Val and Niall.

Val, as part of the pack, made the Sarries pack look tame.  We held almost every scrum and competed at every break down, throughout the first half

Niall Annett was my man of the 1st half.  The odd over throw but hooking, tackling and breaks were outstanding.  For not the biggest of forwards his pound for pound tackling is amazing.  He is consistently becoming our first choice hooker and an accomplished player.

Is it foreseeable that he would get a further international call up?

If I am not at the ground I tend to watch our games at home with the family.  I say with the family, but if it is not going well then they tend to leave the lounge and head to safer areas of the house until the game is over.  Around 50 minutes into the game this started to happen yesterday; my [5 year old] daughter gave me a kiss before leaving the room saying "don't worry I am playing tomorrow" followed by my [7 year old] lad saying "I will score loads of tries for you tomorrow".  Melted my heart and it almost made me happy!!

That's only 44 positives I hear you cry - It can only get better!

Positive 45 is a combination of factors:

45.1 - We were playing away from home
45.2 - We were playing Sarries, current domestic and European Champions
45.3 - It was Carl Hoggs first game in sole charge
45.4 - Chris Pennell will return
45.5 - Francois Hougaard will return
45.6 - Bryce Heem will return

So, taking into consideration all of the above - No I do not think we will be relegated, still!

Yes Falcons won and yes Bristol put on a great show, but we went toe to toe with Sarries and for all of the reasons above I chose to remember my 45 positives and ignore the second 40 minutes and continue to support My Worcester Warriors.

I also feel for a bunch of our very loyal supporters that made the trip to HQ yesterday and their bus broke down on the way back:

Not a nice way to end a day after such a thumping on the pitch.

So I used the Lindsay Clayton over night rule, brought my thoughts together and now figure it wasn't all that bad.

On the upside, today Daisy starts rugby for the first time in the WRFC U7's coached by the amazing Tim Cunliffe and Aidan continues his road to rugby for the WRFC Lions U8's with myself and Steve Perera coaching and trying to pass on our passion for the game to the next generation.

On the insistence of his Mum, Aidan is also sporting a nice new head guard this season, ahead [excuse the pun] of him going into contact rugby next season.  I do get it, but I'm yet to be convinced he actually needs one. Though plenty of kids were wearing them in the U7 festivals last season.