The Club must have had a pretty good response rate as it seems that virtually no-one tweeting, on here or DWs had an invite to join. Perhaps my Partner and I were some of the lucky ones as we attended the tour and Q&A last night along with 40-50 other fans.
No pictures were allowed and they asked us not to share details elsewhere, so will err on the side of caution and anything that feels like it might have been remotely sensitive I’ll keep out of this post (although frankly, I don’t think there was anything unexpected asked about or shared that would be ground breaking but could be taken out of context on a public forum).
The Club made an effort to make it a really enjoyable evening with Drinks and Canapés on arrival and the evening was hosted by a couple of Gents from their PR Agency, along with a guy whose name escapes me but looks a bit like a mini Minozzi who does their Social Media.
The Facility
First off were guided tours of the Elite Performance & Innovation Centre which is as impressive as the photos in the press make it appear. The boys have really made themselves at home their already, with kit all over the place.
It’ll be no surprise that the Physio rooms are perhaps the busiest place at the moment, with plenty of beds in there currently.
The Gym space is huge. A nice touch is an Astro area at one end, allowing the team to run backs moves and line outs inside to get familiar with calls/move when the weather is rubbish.
The now infamous Jack Willis Sauna sits opposite a couple of hydro pools - One hot, one cold along with Recovery Plans shared by Josh and Jimmy (and one other player - can’t remember whose) for the team to take inspiration from - By all accounts, Josh is a particularly vocal member of the squad (in a good way).
Tidbit is that the pre-game run now happens as the Centre rather than at The CBS by the players request so that they have better access to on-site recovery pre and post session.
Geeking out a little bit, the meeting room and coaches room were perhaps the most interesting in terms of getting into the details. Bland rooms, but littered with sheets detailing calls, plays, tactics etc…
We’re always seen as a team that plays off of the cuff, but so much of the first 4-5 phases are structured (I genuinely didn’t realise it was that many). When we’re kicking, for example, there are 10x different calls depending on what’s happening. I won’t give any of them away, or the theme. Just in case we’ve got Bath Spies in here 🕵️♂️.
Some of the attacking tactics for the weekend were up on a big whiteboard, so will be interesting to see if they can be spotted during the game this weekend.
Q&A
It was less of a forum and more of a slightly more planned Q&A with some questions asked by Fans afterwards. There are (I’m sure) lots of questions left unanswered that could have been asked but the team were very gracious with their answers that we ran out of time - No PR-trained media type answers here.
I’m sure there could have been several hours worth of questions and exchanges and perhaps we’ll be allowed to delve into the weeds a little bit on another day more specifically about Wasps and our plans as well as how the rugby landscape is changing within the Premiership and what that might mean for Clubs.
Q&A was led by one of the chaps from the PR agency and he was joined by both Steve Vaughan and Lee. Our Chief Commercial Officer (Adam) was also present.
The Business
No surprises that as an organisation that relies upon footfall to make money, the whole CBS/Wasps business struggled during the pandemic. A cruel twist of fate as by all accounts, we were set to break even not long after the pandemic first hit and the finances would have been looking pretty good by now if it hadn’t.
Steve Vaughan’s major task at the moment is working out what’s best for the Bond financing. It’s taking up a fair bit of time at the moment, but he didn’t appear overly concerned by it - just that it’s not something he’s done before so it’s a learning curve and there’s lots of nuance.
No solution was spoken about, but it sounds as though if we were to repay the bonds via some other form of long-term financing there would be fewer restrictions on our finances, allowing us to use cash needed to be kept back for bond covenants to invest in other areas of the group.
Overall, it felt like they had made hard decisions to cut costs across the group and club in order to ensure ongoing viability and that we can re-build the business from a stable foundation.
Lots of ongoing investment nonetheless - The Training Centre, the Hotel that will be built on Car Park C (no one asked about plans for parking if that site becomes a hotel - but it’s a question I’m interested in the answer to as we currently park there) and of course the modernisation and extension of the conferencing facilities to be ready for the Commonwealth Games.
The business case for the Hotel in particular was interesting built off of the number of beds elsewhere in the city that are typically filled by visitors visiting the Conferencing Centre or an Event at The CBS and this should help balance it and take advantage of the desire to be close to the venue.
There were no sob stories, but they’re really trying to run things as a viable business so that the playing side (of the Mens, Womens and Academy Teams) can be funded by the Business Side and the group still make a profit overall. It’s a real shame that after all of the ups and downs, they have had a double whammy with COVID.
Matchday Experience
This has been raised by a few on here. They’re suffering heavily with labour shortages; not just The CBS but something felt by most Entertainment Venues across the UK. Purely down to Brexit (without getting political).
They’re acutely aware that service has been slow and not to the standard they’d like. They’ve also had several issues with suppliers where at short notice they’ve had to procure food locally, at much higher rates than normal (and not passed it through to punters), to be stocked for game days.
The issues around staffing are also the reason why they’ve refrained from doubling down on the Matchday experience with a more prominent fans village or pre/post-match entertainment for families and for fans as they don’t want to over-promise and under-deliver.
Nothing was asked about the new announcer, but suspect it’s a question for a different day and is one of those edge case issues in the grand scheme of things
In the Community
They’ve taken the decision to stop offering freebies to Schools, Scouts Groups etc… in order to focus on paid ticket sales. It’s a catch 22 as it means a lower crowd to games initially (compounded by smaller crowds across the league currently), but should allow a greater revenue stream from Ticket Sales to come assuming they’re back to winning and can nail the match day experience .
Watch this space from plans to involve the local Henley-in-Arden community, fans and kids in activities at the Centre.
There’s also a reasonable amount of work being done with under-privileged kids using rugby as a vehicle to help give them an outlet, as well as some purpose.
The Rugby Side
It’s clear that Lee and Steve enjoy a really good working relationship and I think having a lot of the admin-heavy, political stuff taken off of Lee really allows him to flourish as a Coach and a Leader.
They touched upon the injury list and although it feels like we’re suddenly getting these major issues, it sounds like many have been carrying injuries for a while and have been carefully managed through them - It’s a familiar story in Rugby - but feels like they’re all coming to a head now. I think part of the issue is just the lack of rest players get.
Lee is very excited by the Coaching Team they’ve assembled. He was particularly enthusiastic about getting Mitch back (and Vaughan signing off on his package!) and about the prospects of Matty Everard as a Coach.
Lee believes Matt is destined for an incredible coaching career and already making a huge difference which I think we can all recognise in our physicality and improvements in defence.
On coaching, the turnover in coaches seemed a little hare ‘em scare ‘em when they all came out last year in the press. But all had been discussed many months prior including grooming Matt to takeover Defence when Costello came to the end of his contract (he just so happened to leave a year earlier than expected).
I don’t think I can share how it all came about, but the movement of Gleeson and Costello leaving and Mitch coming in and Matty Everard stepping up was well considered and planned (Well, Mitch was opportunistic - Lee wanted some experience in the Coaching Staff).
Recruitment was another topic. The new centre is a real pull for new players and they’ve been busy showing prospective players around (There were no hints or suggestions of whom or which positions). Recruitment is a team effort; depending on who the group feel is best to lead discussions will lead them. That could be Lee, Steve, Mitch or Kevin Harman.
We’re unlikely to see any or many recruits from the Championship this season; Lee was very clear that they were quick to go and recruit the best TH, Hooker and LH in the league and did so long before any other Clubs were sniffing around. He said the coaches knew who the top players were so it was easy to identify those targets. One of the benefits of having a Coaching Team with good Championship experience.
Re-building the academy is a big effort. It still needs to be re-located up from Henley and the plan is to house the Academy lads in Henley-in-Arden right next to the Centre.
Aside from tracking academy talent, they’re also seeking to form partnerships with local private schools to try and capture talent out of their patch to go to school into their patch. They’re looking beyond their initial confines and seeking to be creative to foster younger talent that they feel has the potential.
On the Chiefs and Saracens games, Lee said he’s never seen such a standing ovation as after Chiefs for a losing team and against Saracens said he was raging at some of the things he’d seen (Wasps do). Despite the injury struggles, he felt we could and should have done better.
In Conclusion
It felt like many of the things we readily talk about and experience are already on the radar of the club. I think they’re in a position where they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
If they’re open about recognising areas to improve, they’ll be pushed for commitments on timelines to rectify things by. Some of which they can’t necessarily stick to, or control.
If they say nothing, it’s taken as them not understanding the needs or feelings of the fans.
Once again, it felt like the Club were making an effort to be approachable and doing so in an unguarded way without the stock PR answers or simply paying lip service to a handful of fans.
I think in both Vaughan and Lee with the support of Derek we’ve got the makings of a very healthy future.
Topic: Fans Forum (Read 2776 times)
Always a Wasp