catalanglais wrote:
Why should one presume that Escare would have improved the defence.The tries stemmed from our forwards failure to slow down theirs and from their focus on our right wing where the ever fatter Yaha was very poor.We did not actually concede any of the ultra soft tries characterised by missed tackles that distinguish Escare. Gigot made one terrible knockon, which led to nothing, but otherwise, performed bravely and did not make any serious errors. To say it again, our forwards were outclassed and outskilled. What can we do about that?
Because Escare being in the team would've allowed Gigot to play in the centres and Inu on the wing, which was a solid enough combination that won a lot of games last season and probably wouldn't have been exposed in the way that Inu and Yaha were. And 'ultra soft tries' or not, the team was never flogged by that scoreline at home with Escare there. If Escare was having to make tackles then that means the line has been broken and that's a problem in its own right, constantly blaming Escare for every try is like blaming the goalkeeper in football every time a goal is scored and ignoring the defensive mistakes from all the other players that led to the situation.
Gigot also did miss one very soft tackle leading to a crucial try in the first half, and on many occasions the team was crying out for someone in the middle to back up Horo, which Escare would've provided. But I'm not blaming Gigot, I would just like to see him moved back to the position that he was so effective last year and we can stop this myth that Escare is the cause of the poor defence.