OK, so the run home starts on Saturday. Really there's no reason to believe that anyone will get in Barker's way. They can lose two, maybe even three, of their last four games and still win the Plume Shield. I expect they will beat St Aloysius on Saturday, and then one more win will make it mathematically impossible for anyone to pass them.
Waverley and Trinity need to win to stay in touch. Waverley are away to Cranbrook. This was the banana skin they slipped up on last year. Cranbrook loves making things hard for Waverley. But it was 50-7, eight tries to one, in their last game and although Waverley has not impressed lately, it's hard to see Cranbrook earning the upset this time.
Which leaves Trinity at Knox. Trinity will still be pondering that thumping they took at home. Knox stormed home 31-6 and probably put an end to Trinity's hope of retaining its title. Since then Knox has got within five points of Waverley, and Trinity has lost two of its last three matches. I'd go so far as to say that Knox probably start slight favourites at home.
Trinity began the season with a number of pretty clear problems, and things haven't really improved very much. Defence out wide is pretty poor - but not, mind you, the tackling. Players like Pack and Clunies-Ross are very good one-on-one defenders. But it's not one-on-one that's the problem, but the fact that the team's defensive patterns are all over the place, so that anyone who goes wide against them finds acres of space and big overlaps. No-one slides. And there's no speedster in the pack to strengthen the cover-defence.
In attack, the backs do some good things and can score from anywhere but after a dozen games they still don't know what their best combination is. Finn has played centre, fly half and wing. Kotobalavu has played centre, wing and seconds. Pack and Roberts shuffle from centre to wing and back again. Ebeling and Naylor pop up from time to time, and so does Cho, who plays scrum-half in the seconds and sometimes wing in the Firsts. Injuries have a lot to do with this, I know. But in the closing weeks of the season, Trinity's backs still look like strangers to each other. Talented strangers, but still.
Corias seems to be back from injury, which is good, because he's the closest thing Trinity has to an open-side flanker. If Orr and Tiumalu-Afele are back, too, then the pack will have a bit more balance and power than it did against Newington. Actually, the pack pretty much held its own at the breakdown against Newington, with fewer turnovers than usual. The coaches will take some encouragement from that.
They won't be encouraged by the line-out, though. It's a mess. And there's a fairly simple answer. Harb can get airborne and he's light enough for his lifters to keep him there. Don't mess about with variations. Just chuck the ball to him. If the thrower can get the ball somewhere near him, he'll usually catch it. If he gets outjumped every now and then, well, how is that worse than what's happening now? End of heckle.
