What with covid, injuries and a packed programme of games since the last season restarted, the dynamic of a squad has changed.
Intense contact training time per week has to reduce. Players who can naturally blend to a team that changes 50% or more from week to week will thrive.
A deeper squad is required, which means pay per player has to fall. In turn, this would tend to favour squads who can call upon younger players (who tend to be cheaper). Some teams lacking such depth will want to poach to fill in their gaps. Some smaller countries will do the same with dual nationals.
Coaches who impose a style or structure that changes little from week to week, in order to provide a 'pick and mix' approach to team selection will start to see their game unpicked and undone.
Coaches who train to a system less, who train with less contact time, but focus more on stamina and adaptive game skills (the ability to look up and see the gaps and opportunities), their teams will thrive.
We have come to know teams for their style of play. Wasps are morphing into something that doesn't have a style as such. Instead, we are seeing players with the confidence to look up and adapt to what is happening around them. Take a good look at the Gaskell try, that really started when JTA looked up, saw the opportunity in front of him, called to Umaga, who in turn changed up the plan and flicked the ball inside. Launch and Gaskell immediately saw what was going to happen and moved to support. Through goes JTA, offloads to launch, who offloads to Gaskell. Job done. When did these four last play together? Goodness knows. But, watch that move and you would swear they had being working together like that for years as mates. But they hadn't. Now go back and see how many of our squad now seem to be able to do the same 'intermix' style of play.
We had loads of two on one defensive tackles on Saturday, but the pairings changed all the time. But each member of each pair knew what to do. Upper body, lower body. Jackal, trap the ball. That is how we defended so well for those first 20 minutes. It was effective, disruptive and destructive. But it wasn't certain players doing it. It was all of them, mixing it up as they went.
It will be interesting to see how transfers (in and out) and promotions from the academy will go. My suspicion is that those youngsters who are lured away will come to regret it, thinking that it is their own personal skills that made them successful. It isn't. It is the coaching and the squad. As a rugby player, you are only as good as the player on your shoulder. Make a burst through, in a dash for glory, and you will get robbed. Look back on our lost games this season, see how many times one of our players makes such a dash (young scrum halves are the worst offenders) and get turned over. Then see Saturday's game. Making the breaks with support. Like that Sopoaga try. And yet, Sopoaga and Odogwu both left tries out there by letting the dash for glory blur their brains. Odogwu should have known Sopoaga was there and passed. And the inverse later as Sopoaga failed to pass to Odogwu. For me, our forwards have gotten this into their heads, not so all our backs all the time yet. Time is probably ticking away for Sopoaga, but Odogwu needs to learn that he can use his hands to pass as well as catch.
Opportunities to get better, and so I think the only way is up. The grin on JTA's face when Gaskell scores sums it up. Most of those guys are having fun, else why would you be out there in the cold and wet?
Topic: Weak Chiefs team (Read 2391 times)
Always a Wasp