Father and son double act lifts Leeds as Bester plans to tinker

One of the many coaches and players hung out to dry by the leaking of three reports into England’s performance at the World Cup, Ford finds himself in the international firing line.

But since his return from New Zealand, Ford has been working away from the spotlight at Headingley Carnegie, helping out his old mate Diccon Edwards at Leeds.

The outcome from the handful of sessions he has conducted with Edwards’s men has been nothing but positive. For Carnegie are on a winning run of seven matches that has thrust them back into the promotion spotlight.

And after their latest victory, a hard-fought 25-19 success over Yorkshire and promotion rivals Rotherham Titans, Ford’s work behind the scenes was lauded.

Lee Blackett, the Leeds wing, said: “The run we’re on can be put down to a lot of things; the maturity of the side, players getting used to the coaches etc.

“But the big thing for me is Mike Ford. He’s come in and helped us a lot.

“We’ve not been scoring too many more points than we were at the start of the season but we’re definitely conceding a lot less and a lot of credit has to go to Mike Ford and also the boys for the way we have reacted to him.”

The description of Ford’s influence out in New Zealand in the leaked reports ranged from the negative: “He hasn’t moved on from 2007...he’s regressed”; to the positive of his defensive structures being praised.

But Blackett said: “Out of all the international coaches he seems to have come out with a bit more credit than most. He and Graham Rowntree can come out with their heads held high.

“There was only three comments made about Mike from a 30-man squad. But from what I’ve seen of Mike I’ve been nothing but impressed.

“You can see from the results on the pitch how he has changed us.

“Those people that have made those comments are probably the ones who weren’t playing out in New Zealand and were frustrated. As players do, they look to blame someone other than themselves.”

Ironically, it was Ford’s son Joe, in the attacking fly-half position, who held the biggest sway over Friday night’s game.

His kicking game was excellent, pinning Rotherham back time and again, and he nervelessly and intelligently landed three second-half drop goals to keep the South Yorkshire side at bay.

Edwards said: “I felt we managed the second half really, really well. We could have let our heads drops when we conceded a soft try (scored by Robin Copeland) but I thought the way we responded was absolutely outstanding and the impact of the players coming off the bench was a massive positive for us.

“It showed what a quality squad we have and how hard people have worked to get back into the squad. Players like Pete Lucock, – just a teenager – but we have every confidence to put him on and know he can have an impact.”

The run of wins has put Leeds in the hunt for an immediate return to the Premiership in a division where no team is taking complete control.

They head to Bristol on Saturday and Edwards said: “We believe we will be a team that come the end of the season will be up there competing.

“We know we’ve still got huge improvement to come. We’ll relish the victory over Rotherham but we know we have to keep getting better with every passing week.

“We’ll stick to our principles. We’ll have to tweak it here and there as the conditions dictate but we want to play, we want to excite, we want to get the ball moving.

“That means we’re going to make mistakes, and that’s frustrating, but by the end of the season we’ll have eliminated most of those errors and will be a better team for the experience of going through this.”

Asked whether he would want to meet Rotherham again in the play-offs, Edwards said quickly: “No. They’re an outstanding side, you know what’s coming at you and you have to deal with it.”

His oppostite number in the Titans dugout, Andre Bester, fancies his side’s chances against any opponent, only if the lessons of Friday night are learned.

He said: “This was two teams at the top of the Championship and who will be at the top of the Championship at the end of the season.

“It looked like Premiership rugby out there, it was toe-to-toe, there wasn’t a lot of give and take, not much between the two sides.

“The difference was a great kicking game by Joe Ford, he pinned us back, and our exit play wasn’t good enough.

“I’m not blaming individuals, but sometimes we punish ourselves.

“The higher you go up in this Championship, the smaller the margins are. It’s tinkering we have to do, fine tuning.”