Relegation Team - 2017/18?

I know its only the first game but based on what I saw it has to be Quins taking the drop this season. They were poor in the extreme. Too many penalties, poor passing and catching, no penetration with their main ball carriers. One or two looking too fat to be premiership players. It was one error after another. Overall it was a very disappointing performance. When a team looks that poorly prepared in the sunshine on day 1 you have got to look at the coaches. Are they good enough? Not on that display they aren't and they need to up their game 100%. They looked like a side with no ambition and were expecting LI to roll over. Being a Quins supporter, though you wouldn't know it from this post, I couldn't be more worried and disappointed.

Hi there - another Quins supporter here. Agree that the weekends display was a mirror of far too many games from last season! I was hoping that a poor finish last season would be enough to shake up the coaching set up - but then they go and pull European qualification from the bag and hold it up as the most successful season for several years! Kingston gets a reprive....when most of the people that I spoke to were very unhappy with him.
I personally felt that he was the wrong selection in the first place, didn't he have a pop at DOR before and not do particularly well?
I don't know if he was the first choice by the board - but he is what we ended up with. Perhaps they didn't want to spend the bucks to get a serious top level director. A Brendan Venter 'overseer' would be useful - someone who can change the culture.

Anyway - back on topic.
I expect another topsy turvy season from Quins. Matches where you think they are back to form and then dirge the next week. We will likely be mid to lower table if this continues.

Other teams to be worried are Saints. Hard to tell if they were awful and sarries excellent or if any team would have suffered against a relentless Sarries team. Most of the saints tries came when the job was already done. Mallinder like Kingston has probably been in the job too long.

Worcester - just aren't the same team without Houghaard - if he stays fit following international duty and plays enough games for for the warriors then they will be OK - if not, then I can see Warriors dropping.

LI - if they continue as they start will be safe - I think I hear most seasons that 4-5 wins is normally enough to avoid the drop and they are well on their way.

Sale - Not sure yet, haven't seen enough of them. But with the new big name signings I would be surprised if they are in the relegation scrap. However I would also put Diamond in the same category of Kingston and Malinder, in that they have perhaps been in their roles too long.

Reflecting on the loss:

1. First off London Irish were very good. Not amazing. But they had two things we didn't on the day. A game plan, and the will and enthusiasm to get the hard work done. They came to Twickenham with simple tactics, rush up, make your first up tackles, pressure the newbie 10, make the ruck a mess, get any turnover ball to the wingers. This worked admirably because their whole team bought into it, their pack dominated ours outside mauls, their flankers were stand outs, their centre's bullied our backs. And when it was on, they took their chances. Simple and effective and it worked.

2. We looked tired. It was mentioned in pre season that we were tired in one of the games as we'd been doing a lot of conditioning the week building up to it. I wonder if physically we're banking on being a bit over worked now so later in the season we can be fresher.

3. We seemed underprepared. This is a big worry. We seemed to expect to win the game before it started. Once we were down on the board you could see the panic, penalties all over the place and silly passes made this worse.

4. It's more of last season. This too is the biggest worry. Everything that happened in that game happened all last season. JK blamed a lot of it on CoS's squad and him not having enough time to stamp his mark. That looks a bit suspect now.

I do not think we'll be relegated. But I worry we'll be mediocre. JK doesn't inspire confidence and I think he's wasting the talents of a lot of players and guys like Rowntree.

I think who will get relegated this year is more difficult to call than it has been for a long time, primarily because in the last 5 years there has always been one team that is well below the standard of the rest (Bristol, us, Welsh x2 and Worcester), meaning that 4/5 wins is enough to guarantee survival.

That may not be the case this season. I wouldn’t read too much into the opening round results and performances, as the reality of the fixture list is that a there could be a lot of teams whose record after this coming weekend reads played 2 won 1 lost 1. Ultimately in my opinion you can pretty much split the league in two this year, with Sarries, Wasps, Chiefs, Bath and Tigers being the top five, and the other seven teams battling it out, all taking points from each other.

Worcester look the most vulnerable. Their pack looks slightly underpowered compared to everyone else, and they lack quality at 10, so getting control of games is going to be very difficult for them. They will need their two ‘marquee’ players, Hougaard and Teo to be at their very best every time they play if they are to survive, and on the evidence of Friday night up in Newcastle, that could be a real struggle.

Ozzy,

How much of an effect have Kennedy and Brenden Venter had on your team?

For Quins there are a lot of people calling for us to sack our coaches, but then there's a counter argument that a new coach won't turn things around in a season. Isn't that pretty much what your fellas have done?

I know nothing more than the average - But I see similarities with that LI performance and early Sarries development.
Rock solid defence, doing the basics well - kicking territory and pouncing on oppo mistakes.
Simple plan - executed well and it brings results.

Ozzy3213 wrote:I think who will get relegated this year is more difficult to call than it has been for a long time, primarily because in the last 5 years there has always been one team that is well below the standard of the rest (Bristol, us, Welsh x2 and Worcester), meaning that 4/5 wins is enough to guarantee survival.

That may not be the case this season.  I wouldn’t read too much into the opening round results and performances, as the reality of the fixture list is that a there could be a lot of teams whose record after this coming weekend reads played 2 won 1 lost 1.  Ultimately in my opinion you can pretty much split the league in two this year, with Sarries, Wasps, Chiefs, Bath and Tigers being the top five, and the other seven teams battling it out, all taking points from each other.

Worcester look the most vulnerable.  Their pack looks slightly underpowered compared to everyone else, and they lack quality at 10, so getting control of games is going to be very difficult for them.  They will need their two ‘marquee’ players, Hougaard and Teo to be at their very best every time they play if they are to survive, and on the evidence of Friday night up in Newcastle, that could be a real struggle.

I think you're spot on re the split league. The positive for Worcester is they have a guy who can coach forwards. So even if it looks underpowered on paper, I think their pack will get them wins. For us at Newcastle it's really hard to say. We could push on to just outside that top league or we could really struggle, I honestly couldn't guess. LI looked very well drilled, especially the pack and their defence, but on paper they look average to me. Sale had moments against Wasps, I think they'll be OK, but their defence does look porous, especially in the backs. I'd say Quins have the dodgiest looking coaching set up, followed by the Saints and then maybe us.

Yappy - Kennedy et al have obviously had a huge impact. However, we had a year in the Championship in which to earn their stripes. One of the things Venter said when he first came in is that it is so hard to change habits in a losing side. If you want to make big changes then you need to win to reinforce those changes and that's why a year in the Champ was so beneficial for us.

Worked for both Quins and Saints too - although they have both lost their way a bit....

yappysnap wrote:Ozzy,

How much of an effect have Kennedy and Brenden Venter had on your team?

For Quins there are a lot of people calling for us to sack our coaches, but then there's a counter argument that a new coach won't turn things around in a season. Isn't that pretty much what your fellas have done?

A huge effect, but then a year in the Championship helped massively as well. They talk about changing the culture and as I put in my preview on the London Irish thread that's sometimes difficult to quantify, but after the opening game of last season against Doncaster Brendan Venter did a Q&A and in it he said that essentially his philosophy is to ask everyone to give their all and in return he and the club would treat them unbelievably well. As a foundation that is a good start. Being able to build a game plan and get coaching experience against lower level opposition has obviously helped.

Kendo is very analytical, and the rest of the coaches are passionate about Irish which filters down. It is a good combination for us.

For the drop......Worcester....

Yappy spot non. They looked tired and under cooked. Maybe they have been doing too much physical before the match? I hope so because that performance was pretty bad.

Much as it upsets me I'll have to agree that Worcester look hugely vulnerable this season. In my humble opinion they should have put up a bit more fight against Newcastle but they faded away badly. Teo doesn't seem able to get going for Worcester and Hougaard is so often unavailable. Add to that the injury list, no quality 10 and off field uncertainty and things do not look too bright just now.

All that is true of course, but we've had one round, and a week is a long time in sport. Your lads may well come out fighting this week, and Wasps may be complacent. Ultimately it is always 15 blokes against 15 other blokes and regardless of skill, tactics etc it can come down to who wants it more and/or the bounce of a ball. If Worcester can pick up a win, a few of the sides who won last weekend get beat and all of a sudden things look very different.

Yes, thanks Ozzy, it's early days - must try to keep positive. Very difficult at times though!

You're preaching to the converted stub. Two seasons ago was hellish as a London Irish fan. We all felt we had decent enough players but the rugby we played was appalling, was very difficult to stay positive watching it.

Dont worry ringfencing will soon mean teams can just focus on playing attacking rugby with no fears of the consequence of losing a few games.

It is an interesting season for the Aviva. Saints and Quins could both be in the 9-11th spots or competing for 6th.

Practically whomever gets hit with the worst injury luck may be the team to go down. If Worcester, LI, Newcastle and Sale are not badly hit and Quins/Saints are...

Treviso, Zebre, Edinburgh or Dragons for us

I called for Mallinder's resignation along with Dickens and Hopley after the first half against Sarries, they were brilliant, but we were pathetic in both defence and attack. How can professional rugby players spend so much time watching the ball rather than where the opposition are positioning themselves. It was awful and the management have to take a lot of the blame, we got better when the kids came on.

If Saints don't improve against tigers, the coaching set up has to take a good look at itself and decide what is best for the club or for their wage packet. If they decide the latter then the board needs to take action.

I don't think Saints will be relegation candidates, but they could get close and that is not god enough with the players they have and the wages they are paying out.

I am not sure of the thinking behind signing Bigger, we have Francis (also a 12) and Myler (getting older), Mallinder if necessary and Greyson coming through. At 12 we have Mallinder, Stephenson, Hutchinson, Francis and Burrell. Why do we need another 10, even one as good as Biggar, when we are crying out for a top class 8. Eadie is not Picamoles and the Saints game is plan is based around a big carrying 8, none of the Saints back 5 are big carriers in that mould. Lawes can do it to an extent, but we need more than that and he will be away for half the season with England. Just seems like muddled thinking to me.

Hazel Sapling wrote:It is an interesting season for the Aviva. Saints and Quins could both be in the 9-11th spots or competing for 6th.

Practically whomever gets hit with the worst injury luck may be the team to go down. If Worcester, LI, Newcastle and Sale are not badly hit and Quins/Saints are...

Don't forget International times too, that'll hit Quins badly