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'We had to tell them a few home truths at the interval': Worcester handed half-time serve following 40-nil start
By PA
Worcester head coach Jonathan Thomas was bitterly disappointed with his side’s first-half performance which saw them trail 40-0 before rallying to gain some respectability in a 47-22 defeat by Bath at the Rec.
Bath took full advantage to win their fifth game in their last six Premiership starts. Will Muir and Tom Dunn each scored two tries, with Zach Mercer, Ben Spencer and Max Clark also on the try-scoring sheet, while Rhys Priestland added five conversions and Orlando Bailey one.
Joe Batley and Perry Humphreys scored two tries for Worcester, with Ethan Waller and Joe Batley also crossing and Fin Smith adding a conversion.
“Our first-half performance wasn’t acceptable and I was really disappointed by it,” said Thomas.
“We picked the players for a reason but you can’t afford to feel yourselves into a Premiership match and we had to tell them a few home truths at the interval.
“We challenged the boys at half-time to try and secure a bonus point so I’m really proud of the boys that they were able to do that.”
Bath director of rugby Stuart Hooper was pleased with the expansive game that his side had produced in the first half.
He said: “We trained hard in the week so we knew we had plenty in the tank and therefore we wanted to move the ball and create space.
“Will Muir scored two excellent tries early on as the ball went wide as we know we have some dangerous backs if we can get them some space.
“It was a different type of game to our win at Newcastle last week as then we produced a successful forward platform. That’s the blend of rugby I think you need to take to win games in the Premiership.”
Bath were disrupted by injuries to their backs which affected their second-half performance.
Hooper said: “Will (Muir) failed an HIA so he won’t be absent for long but Rhys (Priestland) and Tom (De Glanville) have leg injuries so we will need to have them assessed.
“However I think we should have been able to deal with that better as we need to be able to ride out those bumps and remain in control.
“Over 80 minutes we still have a bit to do in respect of decision making so it will be an interesting review this week.”
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Stephen Larkham, Mick Byrne, Scott Wisental, Ben Mowen, Les Kiss, Jim McKay, Rod Kafer.
There are plenty of great Australian coaches who could do a better job than Schmidt.
Go to commentsThis piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.
I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.
Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.
The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.
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