Magpie wrote:
For me one word sticks out more that most. Discipline.
The team lacks it.

Time and again we would get into a good position only to do something to incur the wrath of the whistle blower:
Early Engagement at a scrum - I counted 3 v Glasgow, all in the opposition 22. Same thing every game.
Various infractions at the line-out.


I think we lack leaders on the field; players who command and demand and who can make the right call in tense circumstances. I really only think we have 3 genuine ones, White, Parks and Duffy. Problem is when they are not on the field all of the time. I was hoping more leadership qualities from Faloon and I don't think Muldoon is a classic leader, Swifty isn't disciplined enough, hopefully Clark will bring this next season, maybe he will go in as captain. I think Marmion has leadership potential for the future, maybe Henshaw as well.

We need grunt up front. We have to many small light players in our forward ranks so when we go against the stronger teams we can't compete i.e Us vs Ulster at Ravenhill.
I don't remember how many penalty tries we gave away this season but it was a few and I definitely lost count on how many penalties went against us in the scrum. We've lost O'Connor and Macca up front as well and while we have Clarke and Fifita probably coming in replacing them we still don't have any huge men who can be a bulwark for us. Would have liked a massive hooker to replace Flavin and Reynecke along the lines of Marius Tincu. It's also the reason why I think Cooney should be given more time on the LH side he's a big bit of beef and it's his natural position. If we got parity at scrum time a lot of the silly penalties would stop and I think we could see a big move up the league rankings. Shame we couldn't sign a lad like Bronson Murray from the Highlanders there's gotta be some Irish blood there!

rossie wrote: I think that ultimately it was a disapointing season with some exceptional high points against leinster, biarritz and ospreyslosing 6 home league games and failing to reach 40pts total in lge in spite of exceptional recruitment has to be considered a disapointment in spite of those massive results this season. In addition 7th place is now a mile away at 50 pts. Home form is key to building any successful team. You look at any successful team and they have an excellent home record and then try to build on that form on the road.
I think this is where Lams legacy lies.

Think this sums up my feelings well. Looking at the final Rabo table and seeing Connacht equal on points with a poor Cardiff team speaks volumes. You're tempted to let them off because they are facing better funded clubs usually with more international players in their ranks, but too often this season they beat themselves. They need to find a way to score more tries. They were shut out by all of the other provinces this season.

Magpie wrote: For me one word sticks out more that most. Discipline.
The team lacks it.

Time and again we would get into a good position only to do something to incur the wrath of the whistle blower:
Early Engagement at a scrum - I counted 3 v Glasgow, all in the opposition 22. Same thing every game.
Various infractions at the line-out.

I think we lack leaders on the field; players who command and demand and who can make the right call in tense circumstances. I really only think we have 3 genuine ones, White, Parks and Duffy. Problem is when they are not on the field all of the time. I was hoping more leadership qualities from Faloon and I don't think Muldoon is a classic leader, Swifty isn't disciplined enough, hopefully Clark will bring this next season, maybe he will go in as captain. I think Marmion has leadership potential for the future, maybe Henshaw as well.

I think that ultimately it was a disapointing season with some exceptional high points against leinster, biarritz and ospreyslosing 6 home league games and failing to reach 40pts total in lge in spite of exceptional recruitment has to be considered a disapointment in spite of those massive results this season. In addition 7th place is now a mile away at 50 pts. Home form is key to building any successful team. You look at any successful team and they have an excellent home record and then try to build on that form on the road.
I think this is where Lams legacy lies.

Borders no.2 wrote: For me our home form has to be better.

I think this is the main thing that we need to build on. Maybe its just the actute disappointment from Friday night, but I do think that it should be possible for us to come away from every home Rabo game with something to show for it.

I think a big improvement was needed in away games, and I think that the lads stepped up to this in the second half of the season.

Less said about all the inter-pros except Leinster at home the better.

As has been said, it's great to see Academy players making their mark.

Still, not a bad season. Plenty of work still to do, but hopefully the new brains and brawn coming in next year will set us straight. A long shout away from 'targeting' games, getting steamrolled by 40 points etc. of the not too distant past.

For me one word sticks out more that most. Discipline.
The team lacks it.

Time and again we would get into a good position only to do something to incur the wrath of the whistle blower:
Early Engagement at a scrum - I counted 3 v Glasgow, all in the opposition 22. Same thing every game.
Various infractions at the line-out.
Penalties in possession - we conceded far too many penalties with the ball.

I don't know if there are freely available stats on it, but I'll bet we do these things more than most others. It is a large part of the reason we do not score enough tries.

I hope Pat Lam can address some of these issue, otherwise there is no point in looking up as it is pie in the sky to believe we will lift ourselves up.

I'm happy enough. It was a steadier season than last year.

Positives: some decent away results at the end of the season.
Solid HEC campaign.
Solid defence

Negatives: 3 away interpros without a score.
Not enough tries

Its good that we were able to maintain 8th in the league but I thought 6th was a realistic goal this season and looking at some of the games we lost its clear that with a more ruthless streak they could and should have been won and we would be finished ahead of a pretty disinterested Munster now.

I'm glad we didn't lose to Zebre, having twice as many chances to slip up against them made it harder. The attitudes of the other provinces' fans if we had lost would have been horrible! :sick:

Overall I'm just excited to see what sort of rugby Lam will have us playing in the new season and how the new signings turn out. The squad for next year looks good in theory but there is the danger that some of our best players will finally start to get semi-regular call ups to the Ireland squad (Henny, Marmion and McSharry for starters, potentially Muldowney depending on how things go) so that's a new pressure to contend with.

Ok so after a disappointing end on the field and an emotional end to the season are you happy or disappointed or a mixture of both with the 2012/13 season?

Rabo League:8th place 38 points. Its a bit short of what I hoped for but after only having 16 points heading into the new year we recovered some ground in the 2nd half of the season. We had a lot of injuries at the start of the season but we didn't get out of the blocks early on and that put us under pressure. We lost to 3 other bottom half sides in the first half of the season which put us under pressure. Some good results away from home in the 2nd half of the season and for the most part we took advantage of the other sides absentees during the 6 nations. Again injuries caught up on us somewhat towards the end of the season.

8th place is ahead of two decent sized clubs who have fallen on hard times Cardiff and Edinburgh (3rd season in a row). Dragons look in rag order and Zebre have been unlucky not to get at least one win but 0 from 28 in all competitions tells its own story. Looking towards future HC qualification there will have to be some kind of merit based league system at some stage and we have to keep looking to at consolidate and build on our position over the last few seasons.

For me our home form has to be better. 5 wins and 4 bonus points from 11 games is short of what we need really. To come away with nothing from 3 games is disappointing.

Away from home we have improved but the interpros were a disaster, apart from that we performed respectably enough, not getting anything from Dragons away was disappointing though, 3 wins and a draw is good but to get no bonus points on the road is disappointing.

Overall I'd say steady enough but must do better.

Heineken Cup:3rd in Group 12 points. We won the two games against Zebre which was hugely important. Home game was dire but we dug it out. The Harlequins home game irks me in that we played some good stuff in the first half and were in with a great shout but we let them off the hook with some soft scores. They are a good side and would probably have overturned us anyway but disappointed we didn't put them in a tight corner when on top. Biarritz was a fine home win, two away games didn't go well especially Harlequins where we made the scoreline look bad through our own indiscipline but didn't expect anything out of either of those in reality. If we are in it next year it will be very difficult to match this total unless we draw Zebre again.

I'd be relatively enough with our efforts but again it has to be taken into consideration that Zebre were in our group.

B&I Cup: 1 win from 6 is a bit disappointing but I think its a competition which will help us in the long term. Wasn't at any of those matches so will leave it at that

Squad Development:Losing the 4 lads (Keatley, Cronin, Hagan and Carr) the previous season was a big blow and we are trying to piece things together since in key positions. The signings for 2012/13 were our highest profile of any pre-season and were miles ahead of some of the dubious signings of 2011/12 (though they obviously cost a good bit more than the 2011/12 lads). They all succeeded to varying degrees but all signings look like decent business.

This season also saw a bit of a changing of the guard, regulars like Muldoon, JOC, Frank Murphy, Gavin Duffy weren't seen as much for differing reasons. With JOC and Adrian Flavin retired, Mike McCarthy, Reynecke and Vainikolo leaving, Muldoon, Duffy, Swift, Parks, (even George) looking like they are coming towards the final run-in the squad is at a delicate stage and needs the right type of signings, leadership and direction from here.

However, positives are that Buckley, Marmion and Henshaw all came through to a big extent this season. Also the likes of Mick Kearney, Eoin McKeown, Jason HW, Browne and Dave McSharry etc. showed what they could do to build on the senior players already there. There is some good talent in the academy but we need to be careful how we go from here.

Plenty to build on but plenty to be wary about also.