RCC Ospreys v Sale Sharks Sun Dec 11th @1pm

Schonert has been suspended for 2 weeks...

That is the key point. If we really want to become a top side we need top players at 9 and 10. We can only give Anscombe that luxury if we sign a decent 10 as first choice and use Anscombe behind him at 10/15 in the hope he gets back to where he was. Same goes for 9. Webb is no longer a top level starter. Could still be decent back up as is RMW. Harri Morgan may be a starter but we need to find out quickly or we need to find a starting 9. Dan Evans is no longer even decent back up level.

@Fiddler , I think practically everyone on here agrees with us about Dan Evans, from what I've seen it looks as though we're pretty well covered at 15 now with Protheroe, Nagy, Collins and Anscombe, the problem arises with how many games we can try different combinations in the next month or so, do we now use the ERC games to give the likes of Morgan, Thomas, Lake, Keiran game time either off the bench or even more radically starting?

Good post Wayne. Where would you make those shrewd signings?

Half backs are the stand out problem for me.

@Fiddler I said a few weeks ago RMW is a disaster waiting to happen, I think you said something similar at the same time, we missed the opportunity a few weeks ago after the Development games to give Harri Morgan a try, I think we have to persevere with Anscombe, I and a few others were saying Josh Thomas wouldn't make it last season, but what a difference he made yesterday, we probably will have to try and get another scrum half, although I'd be more than happy for RMW to prove me wrong as well. For next week I think Dewi Lake deserves a try, at the start of the game he sat down by the hoardings in front of me and he looked to have had a good workout.

I think a lot of our problems could be solved with the centre partnership mentioned earlier. As an aside the speed Luke Morgan showed for his try and the kick he chased down was a revelation to me, teams wont be giving him that sort of room in the future.

Whilst it is great to have instinctive players you need to balance instinct/size/pace/power. You also need quality systems and to manage the game. The game you are looking to see has sadly long gone. I wish it had not but it has.

@Fiddler I can agree with a lot of what you say but how come we continually get beaten by teams who are prepared to play attacking rugby. The game I want to see is still being played though sadly not by us.

@Gaffer I would say we get beaten by sides who play fast rugby because we are not consistently good in defence and have too many slow players on our books. That is why I favour getting the defence right first because that is easier to do. What will I hope please you is there are some very good young backs coming through the academy and if we can introduce them at the right time our attacking will improve. At the moment though we have to try and grind out wins with what we have got until those players are ready. Things may start to look different if we could field North Cuthbert Protheroe Giles and Harri Morgan sooner rather than later

@Gaffer Is that a personnel problem, a coaching problem or a combination of both? We cannot rely on the broken field running and pace of Protheroe to create chances like we used to with Shane.

@ospreysfanforum I would say it is a 90% personnel problem. The half backs cannot put pace on the game. But then the coaches recruit and select the personel. If you cannot create momentum it will always be difficult against pro defences.

@Fiddler True but neither Booth or James recruited our current half backs did they? Granted they do select them but they don't exactly have a lot of choice. It needs a big off season recruitment drive where we sign the sort of explosive players we desire.

@Tal yeah, hard to argue with that.

Does anyone know why Jac Morgan was not playing?

I don't agree with that at all. Sale are a superb defensive team. De Jeager is one of the best line out forwards in the world who totally nullified our line out drive. Curry was outstanding at the breakdown in a game we had to go in with an open side ourselves.

I don't blame our attack coach. We have slow half backs and you cannot beat a strong defensive unit with slow half backs. I would say given the way we are set up a defensive coach and better line speed and technical tackling would have got us far further in that game than blaming an attack coach for something it is pretty obvious is not his fault.Decent half backs don't come cheap but they would transform this sides and give us more options.

I think that is the correct analysis Jake. They are a quality defensive team but not a great attacking one. You cannot give soft tries like that away against a top defensive outfit. I thought we did incredibly well to fight our way back and my major criticism was not kicking the points to get within one score when they lost a man to the bin on 68 minutes.

I suppose no Myler is a risk if JT ends up with a difficult kick to win it in the dying minutes. However if we are behind at the death JT can put more speed on the attack than Myler could.

Also JT can cover 15 where Matt Protheroe has not had a lot of game time and given our problems in the 13 channel I doubt they want to move Collins back unless tthey have to. I would like to have seen Giles Morgan and Lake on the bench but that will have to wait until Paris.

Agreed Jim but there has to be some rotation given the run of fixtures. If not then he really needs to clear out the players he does not trust to play in rotation in these games at the end of the season,

@ospreysfanforum I would be very surprised if he treated a home tie in a big competition as a development fixture. More likely to do some experimenting and rotating in an away fixture

They has a bye this week so won't have lost anybody through injury and had two weeks to prepare. McGuigan is banned after his sending off against Saracens and Tom Curry will undoubtedly replace his twin brother in the starting line up.

If Protheroe plays he can speed things up if he doesn’t we will revert to type and try the power game.

@Gaffer Protheroe will not speed our game up by himself. He will however improve our attacking threat particularly in the run back game.