Always hard to interpret the excellent aspects of your side's win when the opposition was so astoundingly poor as last night's Blues. They were worse last night than they were against the Rebels, is that possible? Bar say Nonu's tackling, what was there to compliment, even if you went looking with a searchlight?
I said prior to the game that if our defense did not improve we'd struggle to beat all but weak teams at home. Well, for me, the three positive highlights from last night's game: our defense was back to something approaching 2011's standards and as such made a crucial impact upon the result; Lucas played well to very well which got our attack up above its preceding 5/10 standing towards a 7; Higgers and Gill get better and better.
Negatives: Harris, merely adequate at 12, and OMG what has happened to his kicking? That error rate will surely hand Cru victory should the next game be close. Our mid field kicking is still poorly chosen, executed and chased. Davies has totally lost his 2011 S15 confidence and some skill and must be dropped (assuming we have replacements). And as Scotty has said, we getting turned over too often. Finally, that we could not mount a charge for the BP try vs a team if this deficiency was a sign of our team's still flawed attacking ability and low inner confidence.
Major improvements will be required if we are to stand and deliver next game v Cru. That game will teach us much more as to our (and our coaches') real 'recovery' status mid-comp.
Oh, and the relative success of our starting backrow last night just invoked the obvious question: why not it v Stormers (when particularly Samo was a disaster at every level, etc.). Would have made a real difference. Our coaches are showing odd frailties in many of their calls this season.