Gustard demands cool heads ...or else!
HARLEQUINS supremo Paul Gustard has put his side on notice that indiscipline will not be tolerated as they set out to keep their Champions Cup hopes alive.
Yellow cards for back rowers James Chisholm, Will Evans and Alex Dombrandt contributed heavily to last week’s 21-7 defeat at Munster and Gustard knows any repeat will be heavily punished by a Racing 92 outfit full of world-class attacking weapons.
Gustard, above, says: “There’s an expression that it’s not all the people all of the time but some of the people some of the time and, unfortunately, when you start creeping north of ten penalties a game you put yourself in danger of not being able to compete.
“We played 30 minutes against a Munster team with one of the best track records in Europe with one arm behind our back because we only had 14 people on the field. It makes it tough.
“We’ve discussed it and what processes we can put in place and how we can coach discipline a bit better. And also for players, what accountability and responsibility is with that and a recognition of things we’re looking at.
“The boys are frustrated that they let an opportunity slip to give us a chance to win and all our endeavour and valour ultimately came to nothing. We had things in our control but things we did out there took away the platform for us to compete.”
Harlequins blew chances, too, and Gustard has called for accuracy in attack, adding: “We went with a good game plan against a ferocious, wellcoached Munster, so to compete to be able to win we needed 15 on the field and to execute our chances.
“Unfortunately, we got pulled back for a forward pass and in the final 10-15 minutes when we were camped on their line, we didn’t score. Ultimately, that led to a huge turnover and a fly-hack which cost us seven points and meant we left with nothing.”
While Racing eventually ground their way to a narrow 26-22 win over Connacht, Gustard knows the gifted Top 14 side are capable of going through the gears if Harlequins lose more men to the sin-bin, defend badly or fail to fire a shot in attack.
He said: “They’ve been Champions Cup finalists in two of the last three years and have a lot of talented international players. When you play in the Premiership everyone has similar attacking shapes, but with French teams it’s the individuals who hurt you most.
“The likes of Finn Russell, Virimi Vakatawa, Teddy Thomas, Jordan Joseph, Camille Chat and Simon Zebo have the ability to break tackles and move the ball away from contact quickly so it’s important we have line integrity in our defence.
“But it’s equally important that we don’t feel threatened to not play against them because there are opportunities to run at them. That’s one of our super strengths so we want to make sure we seek out those opportunities and execute.”