Wasps v Gloucester Post Match Thoughts.

[Heathen]

IMHO, we do not seem to have any structures to our game. If we lose 5 or 6 top players, the whole game goes to pot.

When you look at Chiefs, for example, (not that I am a great Chiefs fan) they are almost robotic and it does not matter which players that Baxter selects. You have to give Baxter credit for that. All the players have bought into the philosophy.

Our game plan seems to be to create chaos on the park - almost 7s like. If that fails then we do not have the game to dog it out in an attritional battle. We also seem to be devoid of the 'nous' to execute the simple stuff well.

Are our coaches struggling to get the message through to the players? We look very disjointed in our play. Energy levels have looked low. Mindsets seem to be in the wrong place. There are no magic bullet fixes - EVERYONE has to pull together.

It has been hinted at by others - are there problems in the camp?

[RBB]

One of the things that seems apparent to me is that we lack the controlled aggression needed to stamp authority early on in games. In the recent defeats we have been second best in this department by some distance. Perhaps Lee needs to take a look at this, as we are far too 'nice' Earlier posts mentioned a peppering of gnarly Saffas. This would be no bad shout IMO, Ackerman seemed to swat our players aside yesterday. We see the same where there are other imports of this ilk. There is no doubt our skills are good enough but our discipline is plain awful, it is not even poor discipline in terms of foul play...just stupidity and lack of common sense. If we can up our game in terms of physicality and adopting a more abrasive edge then we have a chance of turning things around....and stop having brain implosions of course.

[hookender]

 Agree our penalty count is too high , but if our set pieces were better this could reduce scrum and line out penalties in an instant. Breakdown penalties I can accept because margins are so close between success and failure.

 Would have liked to have seen the second Miller collision in close up, because something obviously got him upset. Was it high ? Someone said it was similar to fekitoa in a previous game but thanks to what went on , never got to see. Or it just might have been the glaws player taunting Miller about the hit.

[Bloke in North Dorset]

Agree our penalty count is too high , but if our set pieces were better this could reduce scrum and line out penalties in an instant. Breakdown penalties I can accept because margins are so close between success and failure.

 Would have liked to have seen the second Miller collision in close up, because something obviously got him upset. Was it high ? Someone said it was similar to fekitoa in a previous game but thanks to what went on , never got to see. Or it just might have been the glaws player taunting Miller about the hit.

I’ve just had a good look at it on the BT sports app and the hit looks fine.  We’d have been raving about it if it had been the other way round. 

It’s then difficult to tell what happened on the ground.  The Glos player is on top of Rob and they’re race to face.  Rob them grabs him by the scuff of the neck and they start a tussle.  It looks like Rob is stopping the Glos player getting up, but he’s also grabbing Rob. 

We’ll probably never know if anything was said and but for other players getting involved we’d probably dismiss it as a harsh penalty against Rob for holding on to the player, which is what the ref appeared to be giving before it all kicked off.

[hookender]

Agree our penalty count is too high , but if our set pieces were better this could reduce scrum and line out penalties in an instant. Breakdown penalties I can accept because margins are so close between success and failure.

 Would have liked to have seen the second Miller collision in close up, because something obviously got him upset. Was it high ? Someone said it was similar to fekitoa in a previous game but thanks to what went on , never got to see. Or it just might have been the glaws player taunting Miller about the hit.

I’ve just had a good look at it on the BT sports app and the hit looks fine.  We’d have been raving about it if it had been the other way round. 

It’s then difficult to tell what happened on the ground.  The Glos player is on top of Rob and they’re race to face.  Rob them grabs him by the scuff of the neck and they start a tussle.  It looks like Rob is stopping the Glos player getting up, but he’s also grabbing Rob. 

We’ll probably never know if anything was said and but for other players getting involved we’d probably dismiss it as a harsh penalty against Rob for holding on to the player, which is what the ref appeared to be giving before it all kicked off.

Yes probably was legal , just if ,others hadn’t come in , BT and maybe TMO might have had a look whilst penalty was being taken.

[MarleyWasp]

My thoughts:

Firstly the red card. Initially my thoughts when Carley went to review it was "really?", but Carley was spot on. The whole aim of World Rugby with this tougher stance is to change how players tackle, making them go into tackles lower to avoid the risk of head contact to the tackled player and to limit the risk to the tackler. Thorley was upright and looking where he was going, making no attempt to go low, which resulted in a clash of heads. The fact that he came off worse is no mitigation at all. His dangerous act put him and Rob at risk and Carley had no option really. Had he been in position to tackle around the waste he'd have avoided injury and the red card. It worries me that the TMO who is meant to be scanning for incidents like this and bringing it to the Ref's attention thought it was fine. I also wonder how many of those who thought it was harsh would have felt that way had it been Rob going off for an HIA.

Our biggest problem was silly penalties and Fekitoa needs to have a good look at himself in this regard. Whatever sparked the scrap with that led to his yellow card I am not sure (although Rob doesn't strike me as the sort of player to act like that without a reason) but Fekitoa deserved his card for the sheer stupidity of what he did. The same with the final penalty that 36 missed. Not what I'd expect from a player of his experience and quality.

Our decision making at the end of the first half was troubling. I get why we went for the try but it felt like a repeat of the Northampton match as soon as Umaga went to kick for touch. That said I felt Carley couldn't really be bothered to police the offside line after warning Gloucester about it or to properly check for grounding and that we were stitched up a bit there as a result.

Lineouts are a worry; it doesn't seem to matter who throws in, they just aren't working at the moment. I'm not convinced Ford-Robinson wasn't wheeling for either scrum penalty.

As for the deliberate knock on, whilst it was clearly BS, we've been pushing our luck for a while with knocking on whilst trying to flick the ball back for a while and it was only a matter of time before we were penalised. That said, I'm not convinced Booj was onside when Umaga kicked so...

Box kicking was atrocious. Porter looks more and more like Warren Fury Mach 2 every time I watch him play. I get why now Vellacott is off Blackett wants to focus on Porter over him, but it feels counter productive to me.

This group of players are capable of playing so much better then they are whether the issue is coaching, disciplinary or lack on desire I'm not sure, but something isn't right and I feel it's something only the players themselves can fix.