I take your points but too many times Washy and Horne had to go it alone as they had zero options. Yes Long would have organised them better but Horne never has or will be an organiser and it was Washy's first game. The forwards did not even stand deep or look like they were going to make a run.



The defeat is the team's fault not Washy's or Horne's.

Horne IMO should know at least the basic stuff, he has a voice and should use it. He doesn't have to do complex stuff just a bit of talking telling them to stand deeper and who is going to be the dummy runner.



Its the pivots jobs to tell the team to go deeper and assign dummy runners, Horne has played a lot of games and with some great players. He should know more by now.

You're putting way too much responsibility on the forwards and I think you're overestimating how much play is 'off-the-cuff'.



Pretty much every play should be called well in advance, especially when in the opposition's 20. And, as evidenced by the first couple of games, the forwards will run the right lines and run them fairly well when they get the call. It's not up to them to make a speculative run and potentially mess up an already set up play. So either they collectively switched off and decided to ignore the calls from the halves for the game or, as is more likely, they didn't receive much in the way of instruction.

All of this makes you wonder at what point the coaching staff knew Long was going to be missing.

With the injury being a tight hamstring plus what Agar has said since the match suggests his absence was known long before weekend and was kept quiet.



This Friday, for the Harlequins match it is already known that Long is probably not playing. Therefore Agar/Moore need to decide now who is playing half back and who is calling the moves.

The thing with Horne is not what he does or doesn't know, it's that he just doesn't have the personality to organise or direct the side around the pitch. He never has had, and he never will have. It's just not in him and it's something that you can't teach. This is why he's fine when someone else is doing the organising and he can concentrate on his own performance, but struggles like mad when he's expected to direct others.



The really annoying thing about Sunday is that we've known about this for ages, and it was confirmed beyond any doubt in 2007 when he had to take over from Cooke. The lad just isn't a Scrum Half, so why Agar decided to give him another go in a role he simply will not ever be able to fulfil is, frankly, beyond me.



Add in the fact that he clearly isn't fit and you have the recipe for the disaster that duly occurred.

I think one problwm Agar had was who else to play at SH. Tansey is the only other option to play 7 but that would have meant making several changes and maybe he wanted to avoid that like most fans wanted to avoid it all week in the run up to the game.

I understand that it was a difficult situation, but TBH that's part of what he gets paid to do - make difficult choices. Falling back on a solution that didn't work in 2007 and 2009 was just lazy/cowardly/overcautious - take your pick. Not good coaching IMO.

Think you may be right there, i would surmise that this was a situation he had hoped would not happen for a wee while yet so the momentum wasnt halted!!

I would donate a testicle that Berro will be SH against quins!! moving The FB would be suicide

Very true but the same fans who are moaning also named a similar team to what was picked as they didn't liek the idea of moving so many players around for one position and upsetting a winning team. It's easy to see why Agar made that call.



Fwiw I think he will go with the same again on the halves, they never lost us the game, our poor attitude towards the game did. Long would not have stopped the forward allowing offload after offload and would not have stopped the amount of penalties we gave away either.

I know what you mean Paul but I want my halves to win us the game, not just 'not lose it'. Which Witt did more or less single handedly for them. You are right - there were lots of areas at fault but it needed a creative player to take it by the scruff of the neck and start putting people with the right attitude in the right places on the field.

They never won us the game either, we have a massive pack whose job it is to drive the ball, Sunday produced the same as last season 5 drives & a kick and we lost the games, we reverted back to last season..The h/backs are the crux of the team as Long has proved and have the ability to lead the big pack around the field and create some play.Horne & Washy never produced it last season and for some bizarre reason Agar believed they maybe could this year, poor coaching decision.

Go steady pal. You only had one left the last time we had a count up!