Greater clarity needed to escape from the bottom

LAST week I suggested that nothing less than four points would do against Leicester as there was a serious risk of us being bottom of the Premiership pile at Christmas.

As it turned out we only managed three and will, in fact, prop up the festive table on account of an inferior points difference, and as much as you try to wrap it up with pretty bows and sparkly tinsel, this is clearly not the sort of present Bears fans wanted.

We have one of the biggest stadiums in the league, in excess of 10,000 season ticket holders and a hugely generous Sugar Daddy, yet we are languishing at the bottom of the pack and can’t appear to buy a Premiership win, let alone be gifted one.

That said, I thought we played well in parts on Saturday night and, of course, could have nicked the win at the end when most people would have put their spiralling mortgages on AJ MacGinty slotting home that relatively straightforward penalty. But perhaps that would have papered over some of the cracks that still exist.

We remain infuriatingly inconsistent, often seem to be on the wrong end of the penalty count and sometimes lack coherence at key moments, particularly when peppering the red zone, and trying to explain our malaise continues to be a matter of huge debate. Is it down to our big injury list? Is it a crisis of confidence? Or is it just that we aren’t as good as we think we are?

Clarity is a word that has been used by the coaching staff on numerous occasions but it seems to me that this is exactly what we appear to be lacking both in terms of a game-plan and when it comes to making individual decisions at key moments.

The return of Semi Radrada epitomised this perfectly. An early try and some big carries offered some serious promise but then a rush of blood and a reckless decision to fly off the line cost us dearly.

However, we did score a beautiful try in the first half, Ellis Genge yet again showed his talismanic nature and we are only seven points off fifth, so perhaps it’s not all doom and gloom, even if it feels like it. Up the Bears!

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