FROM TODAYS TORYGRAPH
Mick Cleary, rugby union correspondent, at the ricoh arena
19 MAY 2019 • 12:16PM
There was no attempt to massage the truth, no suggestion that the league table may have lied, no top-spin, just an acknowledgment that both teams had got their just desserts from the season - Wasps missing out on Champions Cup qualification, Harlequins on the play-offs.
Wasps have had a ‘dark cloud’ hanging over them since October, according to director of rugby Dai Young; a gathering storm of money issues and player departures.
Quins, meanwhile, in taking only seven points from their last seven Premiership matches, would have been guilty of flattering to deceive if they had made the semi-finals. It would have done them no good either to have clutched at the straw that was James Lang’s agonisingly-close missed kick from 52 metres in the dying seconds. Harlequins knew that and, to their credit, they didn’t duck the starkness of the outcome.
Such honesty will stand them both in good stead. The best four teams have made the play-offs, albeit Exeter Chiefs and Saracens look to be in a class of their own. It will take some about-turn in recent form to topple the Premiership’s pre-eminent duo of the last five seasons.
Wasps had their brief flirtation with putative glory in 2017 only to be trumped by Exeter in extra time. They know better than most just what it takes to prosper at the top having been there themselves more than a decade ago. Exeter and Saracens are their modern-day equivalents, with their well-stocked squads giving them the ability to rotate and cover for international absences, allied to hard-headed play out on the field when the pressure comes on. They lead the way and the others are playing a distant catch-up.
Young admits that it will take Wasps some time to get back to such status, acknowledging that with the departure of stalwarts such as Gloucester-bound scrum-half Joe Simpson and centre Elliot Daly - whose signing for Saracens earlier in the year prompted such howls of anguish from the Wasps’ faithful - he will have to rebuild another squad for a new era. Simpson’s two tries against Quins (to add to one from wing Josh Bassett) show how much he will be missed. The reconstruction job is far from straightforward.
“Maybe this is the kick in the nuts the club needs because we haven’t been good enough,” said Young. “This squad has run its course. It’s time to press the reset button. We need to be different because things haven’t worked and our second team hasn’t been good enough. My job is to build it back up again.”
As Saracens have shown, that process has to be in constant flow. For all the mud thrown the way of the European champions, with an ongoing investigation into their salary-cap dealings, the north London club have shown the rest of the game the vital importance of nurturing talent from within. Wasps used to be like that. There is a sense that they will find it harder to regroup this time around. They lack leaders and do not appear to have the stability that others do. It will take a mighty effort from the stout-hearted Young.
The Premiership has been more fiercely contested than ever. The margins between success and (relative) failure are fine with only five points separating fourth and ninth. One bonus-point win and a wholly different complexion is put on the season.
Harlequins finished on the same points as Northampton above them and Bath below, yet much as they merit praise for the manner in which they have rallied from last season’s trough of despair, which finished with the sacking of John Kingston and the arrival of Gustard, there is still much to do.
Even though Gustard might eventually take satisfaction from his team’s fifth-place finish, he realises that the manner in which their Premiership campaign tailed off, slipping from a position eight points ahead of Gloucester (who ended up a comfortable third) means that he can assume little for next season.
There is more steel and grit about Harlequins and even if the likes of centre Joe Marchant - surely a bolter for Eddie Jones’ World Cup squad - caught the eye here with his well-taken try, with Danny Care and Elia Elia also on the scoresheet, there needs to be greater potency in the ranks. Quins are on the right path, although they cannot afford to rest on laurels.
“Hard work is what underpins success as I know from my time at Saracens,” said Gustard. “We all have to improve. My bar is not set at finishing fifth.”
The chasing pack still has much ground to make up on Exeter and Saracens.
Always a Wasp
Topic: Wasps boss Dai Young admits he must hit the reset button and build a new squad t (Read 5548 times)