- Mon Dec 09, 2019 5:24 pm
#6986
That was an encouraging albeit ultimately frustrating performance, given the number of missed opportunities that, if taken, would have seen us to a brilliant home win against a strong Chiefs side.
The forward pack really stepped up today in terms of set-piece and the work Evans and Phillips put in was admirable if slightly unexpected. I do still look at our list of returners and wonder what we could do when we have a number of them back in the side and firing.
The backs looked far more incisive yesterday in my opinion. Given the amount of chopping and changing that's gone on it must be difficult, as clearly combinations take time to gel. I think that is our strongest centre pairing, although JVR does need to play with his head up slightly more to really capitalise on his bullocking breaks. Sam James is a fantastic footballer who showed some welcome silky touches, although I think we must accept that he always has a crucial missed tackle in him which is unfortunate.
Hammersley was superb again today I thought, I'm struggling to understand the criticism he's received over the past couple of weeks where I really think he's stepped up. Once again he was rock solid at the back positionally and under the high ball - something we were crying out for last season. He also beat 7 defenders which was more than any other player on the park. I believe he made more metres than any player in the Premiership last year and although admittedly does not seem to have been as successful so far this year, I am confident it will come and is indeed coming - he has at least been providing reliability. Perhaps he is operating to a slightly different gameplan under Dimes than he was at Newcastle where he did seem to be their go-to option in search of metres, he seems to be working in a more distributory role at Sale and has not had the same amount of opportunities in attack thus far. He does always seem to evade the first couple of tacklers after taking the high ball and has been a great signing so far in my opinion