BSE
The halves are shocking but they are not responsible for the easy metres the opposition get when they roll down through the middle of our forwards.
Our forwards best defensive work is when we are within 10m of our goal line but far too many long range breaks from offloads are made against us.
The attacking side poor through the holes in our much vaunted "D", we struggle to get back on side and then the attack either passes or kicks out to the wings and the overlap and inevitable tries appear.
We keep talking it up including our forwards because we look at players individually but as a team most components of our game are shit house and the scoreboard invariably reflects it.
It worries me that the coach was talking up the D when even in 2015, our defence was good at stopping tries but gave up meters and always gave the opposition attacking plays around our 20m line towards the end of their set.
All our efforts were spent trying to get back towards the half way.
We always make the opposition look good in attack because we take 2 steps forward then wait for the playmakers to do their thing and find runners or make a kick.
The "D" is very important but you need to defend territory not just the ingoal.
Watching games when Bennet was in charge you could see the opposition make not more than 40m each set.
It was like watching a chess game where we applied pressure with our defence and eventually we got to start our sets from around the half way.
Did none of the senior players (esp. Hornby) learn anything when Bennet arrived and had them dominating straight after the first off season?