I suppose it's not too much to ask for to see this all season round?
For me, the highlight of last term wasn't the final, good as it was, but the Munster semi. It was a sublime combination of attack and defence, with all but one of our tries being born from counter-attacks or turnovers. We spent the majority of the time defending, yet only leaked 10 points whilst scoring 45 of our own. And this was against Munster, one of the finest sides in Heineken Cup history. Show this match to opposition and anybody would fear us. That's exactly what we want. The "We no longer fear anybody" cliche is one thing, but making opposition dread playing us is another. Something tells us we've got under Leinsters' skin- We beat them 3 times last season, including twice in the RDS, a place in which only one other side has beaten them in 3 years. We also seem to have the voodoo on Munster, who seem to play to the bottom of their ability against us. Whilst we need to get over our tendancy to wobble against the likes of the Dragons and Glasgow, we can live without one or two wins in the league.
We can't, however, do with taking that mentality into the Heineken Cup. Whilst we could probably still get through the group with a loss away to either Leicester or Toulouse, we can't afford to lose to Treviso at all or in either of our other home games. This is all obvious. I'm not saying anything new here, it's the accepted way to get through your group- Win your home games, pick up one or two along the way. Personally, I think that we need to try and extend our reign of terror to the East Midlands and try and make Leicester Tigers shiver at the thought of one particular bird of prey. Not many teams can say that, when playing the Tigers, we need to focus on the set-piece, as we'll be dominant at the scrum. Even without Paul James, we've got Ryan Bevington, who's growing as a scrummaging loosehead all the time to compliment both the best scrummaging tighthead and hooker in Britain. The lineout needs some tidying up, but Ian Evans has done an excellent job as of late and should find himself tasked with making it run like clockwork, and I have faith in him to do so. If Ryan can retain his form from last season and Tipuric just makes sure that he's still as enthusastic come ruck time, we should be able to disrupt their game pretty well. Hit Manu Tuilagi on the gainline and we've got them bottled.
This should be enough to beat them in the Liberty and possibly sneak a win away from home, save for a Tigers renasonce. However, I think we're good enough to tear them apart if we play well, and for that we'll need a functioning backline. Paul James already has a natural replacement, as does Tommy Bowe in Hanno Dirksen (Left), who had an outstanding end to last season and quickly grew as one of my favourite players. Hanno is completely nuts. He'll chase anything, and he'll chase it as hard as he possibly can. He'll hit anything that moves and he's more than happy to let himself get smashed around if it means that the team'll be better off for it. He's exactly the kind of player we need. However, there's a Shane Williams-shaped hole on the other wing that'll need some filling. While we seem to want to percevire with Eli Walker, think we's some way off being the class of player we need. He's a decent attacking player, granted, but his defence needs some work, he's questionable under the high ball and he's not a particuarly solid finisher, either, which is something we really need. Personally, I'd have liked us to sign somebody quite cheap, for example Russias' Denis Simplikavich, who is proven at international level yet would cost next to nothing whilst having a couple of youngsters get gametime in order to play the following season. Considering Walker is injured, anyway, I'd like to see 19-year-old Luke Morgan given a shot. He's rapid and picks a good line and finishes like it's nobodies buisness. The other option is switching Richard Fussell to the wing and putting Ross Jones in at fullback, who was quite good for Wales in the u20s World Cup, although even before that tournament, I couldn't help but wish we'd kept hold of Tom Prydie. Wales' youngest international finally seems to be living up to the hype, being the pick of the Welsh side that matched our best-ever performance in the junior championship (And the last time we did that well the team included Sam Warburton, Leigh Halfpenny, Jonathan Davies, Dan Biggar, Justin Tipuric and Jason Tovey amongst others). While he played wing in that tournament, I see Prydie as a fullback, and would have loved to see him develop as our number 15 over the course of the season, but it's too late for that now.Our gameplan was spot-on at the end of the last season, keeping it quite simple. We'd rely on the pack to win us the ball and Dan Biggar to put us around the field, as we did under Johnson and Holley, but now we'd actually look up and attack when it's on. The players seemed to be enjoying it and this came through in all aspects of the performance. There seemed a dedication to the cause in defence to go alongside the desire to score tries as lovely as Dirksens' against the Munstermen. Keep this up and we'll go far. That's the challenge for this side next season. Consistancy. For a whole year. It'd be a first, but we can do it. Ole ole ole, Ospreys Ospreys...
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