I am very unsure on all of this. Dai did lead us through some periods of very exciting mrugby, with some superb results- you can't get closer to the title than we got without winning it- a different ref other than JP and the title was ours- but there were two distinct periods where we were pretty conservative, one season prior to the move, one now. The problem with conservative rugby is beyond style, it is simply that it has a ceiling if you are not the best at it, and we never looked like we would be with our personnel. Munster and Chiefs have had little success in Europe of late, whilst EAs circa 2012 failed in all the big games playing pretty conservative stuff, whilst flat track bullying elsewhere. It is safe but rarely gets the big prizes. It is true that SA won a WC with a conservative style, but a fixture list where they had only to beat England, Wales and Japan helped. Wasps have developed a style over 18 months that feels very safety first, which for me limits our potential. I do not know how much of this is Dai, and how much us forced by circumstances.
I will be honest, I don't like our recent style of play. We have looked sharp offensively a small number of times in eighteen months, two games when Searle clicked for forty mins and a couple of recent ones with Jacob playing well and the backs suddenly clicking.The rest of the time when we have been successful, and there are not that many successes, when we have won matches it has not really been through scintillating back play but more about dogged defense, solid scrum and defensive intensity with tries coming from the forwards. Think Chiefs last year- great win but our backs created little, at least in comparison to previous wins.
I am concerned by reports of rifts. We do have a great crop coming through by all accounts, and it slips true that some star signings have not lived up to billing, but the idea put forward in various outlets that Dai has been refused signings is worrying. I hope it is not true, he deserves more.
I don't think the club have handled it well regardless of the actual decisions made. Does anyone agree?