Ugo always comes across a bit like a commentator in the Olympics who is asked to cover some obscure sport they've never watched before and drunkenly read the Wikipedia page on the sport to try and give the impression he knows what he's on about. Whilst he does have some good insights occasionally he waffles too much and gets too many things wrong.
Healey is good, apart from when he tries to be funny. Ben Kay is someone I find infuriating and very anti-Wasps. He never seems to have a good word to say about it, and whilst he is a director at Leicester in the same way Lawrence is at Wasps, he seems much more involved in day to day decisions, which I don't think enables him to stay neutral. I think, to be honest Lawrence is pretty biased towards Wasps and I can see why he rarely features on our matches, but at least when we're playing badly he will say so. Flatman is a natural at this media lark.
Going back to the match, I commented in the morning all thread about the steel the squad have developed to grind out wins and it really showed last night. The red card helped us, but I think the extended break between the ball going out of play and play eventually restarting after the red card was more important as it gave us a chance to calm down and reset before play resumed. Jack was quite simply exceptional, Tom did little wrong. The pack were dominant and not fairly rewarded in my view.
The backs were a bit anonymous. When Jacob makes an error he tends to fall apart pretty quickly and I think he benefitted from having Gopperth outside him last night, unlike in the second half against Sale when Gopperth was at Full Back. Dobby managed to combine the sublime with the ridiculous at times. His pass to Young for the third try and kick shortly after the red card tackle were the sublime elements of his game.
At the time I was surprised about the red card, but having watched it back and listened to Luke Pearce's reasoning, I actually found it refreshing to see an official take the view that the tackled players action to protect themselves against serious injury should not be a mitigating factor in the outcome. My concern whenever you hear a referee say a player lands on an arm that they have naturally put out to break their fall means it's a yellow is that we will create an environment where players try to stop protecting themselves and will eventually result in serious injury. That said, I wouldn't be shocked if it gets overturned at the RFU Disciplinary Hearing.
Always a Wasp