Post by Jamie Crawford on Feb 9, 2015 11:52:56 GMT
After a great result that has hopefully got our league monkey off our back, we are still eleventh as Moseley also won (still one point above) but Albion lost, so they’re seven points behind us or at least two games (wins). This results monkey is a fickle creature; it doesn’t care about us performing well in Cup matches but it got to work metaphorically hampering our league performances but NO MORE. The Knights’ performance against Carnegie should have shaken it off, thrown it to the ground and stamped on it so that it can’t rise up again.
On we go to play the Pirates on their home turf, hopefully our British and Irish Cup 30 – 31 last-minute victory will be fresh in the player’s memories.
Our opposition, the Cornish Pirates are seventh after winning six and losing eight of their fourteen games played. The Pirates will be smarting a little after only gaining a losing bonus point against tenth-placed Moseley. We’ll hope that the Pirates don’t get any points when they lose to us on Sunday. The Pirates they beat us 22 – 24 last October, so we gained a losing bonus point but they gained the losing bonus point a fortnight later when we beat them 29 – 25 in the B & I Cup.
Pirate’s game against Moseley might have smacked of over-confidence after they beat Bristol 45 – 38 the previous week. The Pirates had an amazing performance that scuppered any odds. They were definitely odds against beating Bristol but they did it. A week later the Pirates would have expected to beat a team that is low down in the Championship but they lost! Overconfidence or the added pressure of being favourites compared to zero pressure of being decided underdogs? Who knows and I bet the Pirates wish they knew why!
Hopefully it was over-confidence when playing a team ranked lower in the championship, if so can someone remind the pirates that we are below Moseley and so they can be over confident again!
The Pirates have scored 359 points (nearly 26/game) compared to the Knights’ 260 points (nearly 19/game). On the flip side the Pirates have leaked 383 points (27.4/game) compared to the Knights’ 322 points (23/game). Simples – stop them scoring tries, don’t give away penalties and score tries ourselves.
Pirate Fly Half Kieran Hallett is the second highest points scorer in the Championship, second to Dougie. Hallett’s strike rate is nearly as good as the best in the Championship (Dougie again). Unfortunately Hallett must like kicking at Mennaye because Hallett rises to the top spot in the home kicking strike rate. The Knights must definitely keep their discipline and not give away penalties as they’ve got a better than 80% chance of costing us three points. Seemingly unkickable penalties may be kickable for Hallett.
Pirate Full Back/Wing/Fly Half Keiron Goss is the Championship’s seventh top try-scorer and that is put in perspective when you realise that three of the top five try-scorers play for the Worcester Warriors. Scrum half Tom Kessell is only two tries behind Goss and he has scored a try more than leading Knights try-scorer Latu Makaafi.
The Pirates are the fourth highest try-scorers in the Championship but they have conceded the third highest amount of tries. The Knights have scored 24 fewer and conceded 13 fewer. 85% of their tries have been scored by backs, 15% by forwards. Wherever Goss plays in the backs, that position tends to score tries but the whole set of backs know where the try-line is, especially their wingers.
Unfortunately for the Knights, 58% of Pirate tries scored have been touched down at Mennaye Field. Two thirds of Pirate try-scoring has occurred throughout the second half.
Conceding tries is more a 60%:40% split backs: forwards, with 27% of the total being scored by the back row.
Home advantage further plays a part in the number of tries conceded at Mennaye with only about 42% of their tries being conceded at home. There isn’t a period when the Pirates are more vulnerable to attack with tries being conceded fairly evenly throughout the game. There are slight dips in the first twenty and a little more so in the last twenty, so they are at their strongest in the middle half od=f the game.
This weekend:
Bottom-placed Albion (seven points below) welcomes third-placed London Scottish on Friday.
Tenth-placed Moseley (one point above) will try to beat second-placed Bristol;
Ninth-placed Leeds Carnegie (five points above) play at Headingly against fourth-placed Nottingham and
Seventh-placed Cornish Pirates (nine points above) want to quell a raid from the eleventh-placed Knights all on Sunday.
A victory against the Pirates would probably make us rise to tenth unless Mose can beat Bristol, a five-point victory would see us rise to ninth IF Carnegie lose to Nottingham. So the request is to exploit the Pirate defence to score four tries or more whilst shoring up our defence to prevent them scoring. All of this whilst not giving away penalties. If we get a win with a bonus point, we can’t do any better and the other teams can worry about their own scores. That is the ideal but we’d be happy with any type of win.
Incidentally it’s nice to see the Knights’ home and away attendances are both the fourth-highest in the Championship. Only Wuss is higher on both sets of attendance.
On we go to play the Pirates on their home turf, hopefully our British and Irish Cup 30 – 31 last-minute victory will be fresh in the player’s memories.
Our opposition, the Cornish Pirates are seventh after winning six and losing eight of their fourteen games played. The Pirates will be smarting a little after only gaining a losing bonus point against tenth-placed Moseley. We’ll hope that the Pirates don’t get any points when they lose to us on Sunday. The Pirates they beat us 22 – 24 last October, so we gained a losing bonus point but they gained the losing bonus point a fortnight later when we beat them 29 – 25 in the B & I Cup.
Pirate’s game against Moseley might have smacked of over-confidence after they beat Bristol 45 – 38 the previous week. The Pirates had an amazing performance that scuppered any odds. They were definitely odds against beating Bristol but they did it. A week later the Pirates would have expected to beat a team that is low down in the Championship but they lost! Overconfidence or the added pressure of being favourites compared to zero pressure of being decided underdogs? Who knows and I bet the Pirates wish they knew why!
Hopefully it was over-confidence when playing a team ranked lower in the championship, if so can someone remind the pirates that we are below Moseley and so they can be over confident again!
The Pirates have scored 359 points (nearly 26/game) compared to the Knights’ 260 points (nearly 19/game). On the flip side the Pirates have leaked 383 points (27.4/game) compared to the Knights’ 322 points (23/game). Simples – stop them scoring tries, don’t give away penalties and score tries ourselves.
Pirate Fly Half Kieran Hallett is the second highest points scorer in the Championship, second to Dougie. Hallett’s strike rate is nearly as good as the best in the Championship (Dougie again). Unfortunately Hallett must like kicking at Mennaye because Hallett rises to the top spot in the home kicking strike rate. The Knights must definitely keep their discipline and not give away penalties as they’ve got a better than 80% chance of costing us three points. Seemingly unkickable penalties may be kickable for Hallett.
Pirate Full Back/Wing/Fly Half Keiron Goss is the Championship’s seventh top try-scorer and that is put in perspective when you realise that three of the top five try-scorers play for the Worcester Warriors. Scrum half Tom Kessell is only two tries behind Goss and he has scored a try more than leading Knights try-scorer Latu Makaafi.
The Pirates are the fourth highest try-scorers in the Championship but they have conceded the third highest amount of tries. The Knights have scored 24 fewer and conceded 13 fewer. 85% of their tries have been scored by backs, 15% by forwards. Wherever Goss plays in the backs, that position tends to score tries but the whole set of backs know where the try-line is, especially their wingers.
Unfortunately for the Knights, 58% of Pirate tries scored have been touched down at Mennaye Field. Two thirds of Pirate try-scoring has occurred throughout the second half.
Conceding tries is more a 60%:40% split backs: forwards, with 27% of the total being scored by the back row.
Home advantage further plays a part in the number of tries conceded at Mennaye with only about 42% of their tries being conceded at home. There isn’t a period when the Pirates are more vulnerable to attack with tries being conceded fairly evenly throughout the game. There are slight dips in the first twenty and a little more so in the last twenty, so they are at their strongest in the middle half od=f the game.
This weekend:
Bottom-placed Albion (seven points below) welcomes third-placed London Scottish on Friday.
Tenth-placed Moseley (one point above) will try to beat second-placed Bristol;
Ninth-placed Leeds Carnegie (five points above) play at Headingly against fourth-placed Nottingham and
Seventh-placed Cornish Pirates (nine points above) want to quell a raid from the eleventh-placed Knights all on Sunday.
A victory against the Pirates would probably make us rise to tenth unless Mose can beat Bristol, a five-point victory would see us rise to ninth IF Carnegie lose to Nottingham. So the request is to exploit the Pirate defence to score four tries or more whilst shoring up our defence to prevent them scoring. All of this whilst not giving away penalties. If we get a win with a bonus point, we can’t do any better and the other teams can worry about their own scores. That is the ideal but we’d be happy with any type of win.
Incidentally it’s nice to see the Knights’ home and away attendances are both the fourth-highest in the Championship. Only Wuss is higher on both sets of attendance.
