How much does everyone think the conditions played in us losing last night?
When I heard we were in for rain, I pretty much drew a line through it. I don't have any solid data to back this up but I have it in my head we go to shit when it's slippery. I mentioned Selwyn being prone to slipping over, grassing the ball and losing confidence in the wet. That happened a bit last night, but he wasn't terrible. But he was definitely quiet, and we saw nothing of those few weeks of electric runs that preceded that wave of hype.
Reynolds is another who I have in my mind as a dry track bully. Again, he was downright poor last night on a damp field. Maybe he did have some kind of respiratory illness in the week. Maybe his ribs are still a massive issue. Maybe something else. He's overdue a blinder.
A few have commented on props passing to props, which we saw a few times. You mightn't have been complaining if one of those "props" (or locks) were Patty, I'm pretty sure. The difference being he's been running diagonal lines rather than hitting it up, and his passing game has improved out of sight. We really missed him last night. Massively.
Payne is a bit of a non-event. Without going into a breakdown of all his pros and cons, suffice to say, he was our least threatening forward in attack. And our attack was abysmal.