Fissler and some of the actual press have been reporting that we are in a battle with Harlequins for the signature of New Zealand fly half Aaron Cruden. There were even reports that we were willing to pay him £700k per season. Now I would love this, I think he is an exceptional player and to get the opportunity to watch him would be worth a £40 match ticket, but and this is a big BUT - It is never going to happen.
Carl Hogg was interviewed about it, basically saying he would love somebody "like" him and that we are always looking for talent "like" him. If we were really in the race the club would shout it from the roof tops. Further to this, though today [Saturday 1st October] it is reported that French clubs are will to offer: $1,54m per year! The 80+ responses on COYW to this possible signing balked at the thought of £700k how about we double that as without top European rugby we would have pay through the nose for his signature.
So we are faced with the thought that if we average 8,000 per home game for 17 home games £11 of each and every ticket would go towards his wages.
Or we invest in the kicking talent we already have.
Back in March 2012 a young talented 20 year old fly half was given an unlikely opportunity - Stephen Donald, New Zealand world cup winner picked up an injury, Bath fans were crying out that a new 10 was needed, up steps Tom Heathcote.
Brad Davis the Bath backs coach at the time was quoted saying that he does make mistakes but he will enthrall and score points [sounds a bit like Lamb].
Do we expect too much from our play makers at Sixways?
Do we compare all that follow Goode to a man that set records everywhere he played?
Should we give our guys more of a chance or is that something we cannot afford?
The Inverness born 24 year old has played for Scotland, having played age grade rugby for England and has played for Bath and Edinburgh, so he is clearly not a novice. In the same way Grove went North to further his international hopes, Tom came back to England looking to re-build his professional career. He has already played more games for us and scored more points for us than he did for Edinburgh.
This season he has played 121 minutes, scored 10 points [6.6 per game] with a kick success rate of 67%
Compared to Lamb, who has played 199 minutes, scored 17 [6.85 per game] points with a kick success rate of 54%
They are pretty similar, one thing that separates them [and may well be why Tom starts against Falcons Sunday] is their tackle stats: Tom is 86% whilst Lamb is only 74%
Only looking at this season there are some clear signs: Lamb is the more attacking fly half of the two and Heathcote the more stable or secure. Lamb must have a league record for bad passes and I can see where the Falcons view of "some players that cannot defend" comes from with Ryan missing 7 tackles and being turned over 5 times this season already.
Heathcote seems to make better ground and have better distribution as his statistics are better than Lamb's even though he has had less game time this season.
The big problem is the place kicking. We have already seen that kicking better than 74% in a game makes the difference between a loss and a draw or even a loss and a win. Both Gloucester and Sale games would have been home victories for us if only we have kicked >74% on the day.
I'm not sure who can help Lamb with his missed tackles as it seems to have been part of his game his entire career.
In our last Championship season we got Paul Grayson in to help with kicking. The season we were relegated he was brought in to improve Pennell and Lamb's kicking [Seems a common requirement].
So where is he now? Surely by now we must have been on the phone to him asking for some more of his kicking magic? It would appear he is a coach for hire, so get him hired! Book Him Here
Bring in Grayson, he could help Tom and Ryan with their immediate need - get the kicking to >74% but he could also work with some of our future kickers, or even back up kicks like Shillcock, Eden and Pennell.
I have no idea how much he costs but if he can bridge the gap between 64% and 74% then he would have already been worth 2 victories over 2 draws. I am also sure he would cost less than Aaron Cruden.
Invest in the players we have got, the club need to do it with time and money, we as fans need to do it with support at the ground. Just a 10% improvement and we will get much needed wins, starting this weekend.
And finally....
September has been a busy month. Sam Smith having retired from the club is crowd funding his way to opening the brightest coffee spot in the city. Outgoing WRSC Chairman, Darren is pictured above with the supporters committee donation of £250. Take a look Here and make sure you start visiting when the place opens later this month.
A big thank you to Darren Birch who after more than 5 years as WRSC Chairman has stood down and given the seat to Bob Low.
Good luck Bob [he is the one on the left] I am looking forward to seeing where we take the supporters committee under your leadership.
If you would like to get involved with the WRSC or see what we do take a look Here
No comments:
Post a Comment