It's been an action-packed Easter weekend already and it's fair to say that Round 20 has delivered in terms of points on the board as well as an unexpected result. Before the final two matches let's take a little look over the results, stats, facts and reaction thus far.
Results
Harlequins 26- 39 Exeter Chiefs
Worcester Warriors 25 - 19 Bath Rugby
Leicester Tigers 30 - 3 Newcastle Falcons
Gloucester Rugby 39 - 30 Sale Sharks
Northampton Saints 25-27 Saracens
Bristol Rugby 21-36 Wasps
Stats and Facts
Northampton Saints 25-27 Saracens
Bristol Rugby 21-36 Wasps
Stats and Facts
- Chris Robshaw and Jack Yeandle made 22 tackles each on Friday night with the latter delivering his in a 66 minute shift!
- Bath had won their last eight encounters with Worcester and before Saturday the hosts' last win over the West Country side was back in November 2011.
- Gloucester Rugby's Tom Marshall made 22 carries and 122 metres at Kingsholm. Mike Haley turned heads with carries and metres too delivering 14 and 92 respectively for Sale.
- Wasps made it five on the bounce in Premiership Rugby matches since their reversal at Sale on 19 February, this was their only defeat in the tournament since mid-November.
- Harry Mallinder made 14 carries and 121 metres at the Stadium MK for Northampton Saints while Schalk Burger topped the tackle count with 14.
- Wasps made it five on the bounce in Premiership Rugby matches since their reversal at Sale on 19 February, this was their only defeat in the tournament since mid-November.
- Harry Mallinder made 14 carries and 121 metres at the Stadium MK for Northampton Saints while Schalk Burger topped the tackle count with 14.
Reaction From The Top
Naturally Rob Baxter was content after the full time whistle and shared that he has a few selection conundrums at the moment:
“We have a genuine belief that if we work hard we will get something out of games. We’ve got a resilience, we’ve got a good work ethic and the guys are getting the rewards for that hard work. We’ve got quite a few combinations that work well together, we moved Henry Slade over and had Gareth Steenson on and still maintained that fluidity. I like having interesting selection problems, it keeps them all fresh and hungry and in the second half we brought the best out of all our backline.”
Conversely John Kingston believes that his Harlequins side should have come away with more from their home match:
“Exeter are a top-drawer side, they’ve defended unbelievably well and we threw the kitchen sink at them, but everything seemed to bounce into their hands. We’ve come away with nothing which is very harsh in light of the performance out there. For 65 minutes I think we were the better side, we should have been further ahead than we were, but these things happen.”
At Kingshlom Gloucester and Sale were embroiled in high-scoring encounter with both coaches stating that their sides handed points to the other. Jonny Bell highlighted his thoughts after the Cherry and Whites pulled back a nine-point deficit:
“I’m delighted with the five points but we always make life difficult by hurting ourselves. We scored five excellent tries but we gift-wrapped them three or four easy tries and there were too many fundamental mistakes. We’ve probably played better this season and lost. The replacements made a big impact to get over the line but there is still plenty to work on.”
While Steve Diamond remains frustrated at Sale’s lack of consistency in the Premiership this season:
“Our aim was to come down here and score four tries, which we did, but we should have had at least another point. We gifted Gloucester tries but they brought on a few experienced players in the last quarter which made the difference. We are what we are and our position in the table reflects it. Week in week out, we are inconsistent and we are even inconsistent during the course of games.”
At Sixways Worcester Warriors turned a few heads with their win over Bath Rugby and Gary Gold spoke honestly after the match:
"I’m elated and I’m very proud of the guys. A lot adversity going around at the moment around Worcester over the last couple of months as you guys know. Just throwing a little bit more at us by losing both of our front line props this week so we knew against a quality Bath team that we were put against it and I’m just very proud of how we stuck in for the full eighty minutes.
"A lot of credit much go to the conditioning team. That was one of the biggest things when I came in at the end of January - I didn’t think that we were fit enough and I didn’t think that the team could lives with teams of Bath’s and Wasps’ quality but they’ve done a great job and I think that the guys are looking fitter and in better shape."
Todd Blackadder gave his assessment to the Bath Chronicle after a match that they will have targeted to cement their play-off hopes following a strong outing at Twickenham Stadium last weekend:
"It's so disappointing to be sitting here after this rollercoaster where were up and down. Our exit sets were really poor. We were way off the mark and gifted the ball back to Worcester, who played really well. In the second half unforced errors killed us. We were forcing the ball and they did a good job of slowing down our breakdown."
At Welford Road Matt O’Connor hailed Ben Youngs’ performance before highlighted the growth that he believes the side could deliver;
“Why would you not pick him? [to go on the Lions tour],” said O’Connor. “He is as good as there is at nine in the world at the moment and the added responsibility of the captaincy worked in his favour. He is a world-class player and he delivers most weeks. I am happy he is playing really well for us.
“I think we have 25, 30, 40 per cent growth in us, so it will be interesting to see how we go in the next two games. If we look after the ball, four, five, six times better, you are talking about those numbers. We are good enough to beat anyone.”
Meanwhile Dean Richards expressed their emotions after a tough day at the office for Newcastle Falcons:
“The lads are disappointed in the changing room because we didn’t turn up on the day, and that’s the most frustrating part. You know what to expect against Leicester and, if you don’t get certain things right, as we didn’t on the day, then you’re going to struggle.”
At Ashton Gate Bristol Rugby's relegation from the Premiership was confirmed through their defeat to Wasps. Obviously the caveat being unless something highly unlikely happens in the play-offs in terms of another team prevailing that don't meet the criteron. Mark Tainton had this to say following the match:
“There is a pattern in that we’ve played well and then lost it in the last few minutes. They’ve all been different games so there are different reasons for that. We will and need to keep looking at ourselves in terms of our game management, which clearly wasn’t helped when Picamoles and Myler aren’t on the field.
“We’re obviously disappointed, but I was immensely proud of the performance the players put in. It was a similar story today to a lot of games – we’ve created an awful lot, we’ve been in the opposition 22 many times, but we’ve just not executed and got across the line.
“Obviously it’s disappointing to get relegated, but we’ve put a plan in place whether we were going to stay in the Premiership or we were going to get relegated.
“We’ve recruited strongly over the season to make sure we’re in a stronger position next year, whichever league we were in, than we have been in this season. We’ve done that, and we still have one or two people to come in to strengthen the squad further.”
Despite Wasps being at the polar opposite end of the Premiership table Dai Young still has frustrations about their performance levels right now:
“It was a little bit frustrating in the first five or ten minutes as normal. We talked to the players about building into the game and not making it hard for ourselves, and if you look at the first six minutes we made something like five handling errors, gave away two penalties and went seven points down. But after that I thought we were pretty good in most areas, although there’s obviously room for improvement.”
Finally at the Stadium MK Northampton Saints lost a game that was theirs for the taking against Saracens and Jim Mallinder's assessment was clear:
“There is a pattern in that we’ve played well and then lost it in the last few minutes. They’ve all been different games so there are different reasons for that. We will and need to keep looking at ourselves in terms of our game management, which clearly wasn’t helped when Picamoles and Myler aren’t on the field.
“For the third week in a row, we’ve played some good rugby, been ahead and it’s really disappointing to lose in the last few minutes. It’s a little bit of composure closing it out and a little bit of luck.”
Mark McCall was forced to deploy his bench in order for the reigning champions to secure the win:
“We had a decent bench to bring on, of course but I think the players got almost angry after the third try which was a really poor and sloppy one to concede. It felt as though they were irritated with themselves which meant they carried the ball that bit harder and starting to get off the line that bit harder. This put them under a lot of pressure and thankfully we had time to win the game.”
Of course now all of our attentions turn to a massive week ahead with the Lions squad announcement on Wednesday, Eddie Jones naming his England squad to tour Argentina on Thursday and the European Champions and Challenge Cup semi-finals.
Out On The Full will be bringing you coverage from the respective squad announcements here and across Twitter and Facebook so stay tuned for a hugely exciting week!
