Wasps v Irish

[Brandnewtorugby]

Wasps team to play London Irish

15. Willie Le Roux
14. Christian Wade
13. Brendan Macken
12. Jimmy Gopperth
11. Josh Bassett
10. Danny Cipriani
9. Dan Robson
1. Simon McIntyre
2. Tom Cruse
3. Jake Cooper-Woolley
4. James Gaskell ©
5. Will Rowlands
6. Ashley Johnson
7. Thomas Young
8. Guy Thompson

Replacements:
16. TJ Harris
17. Ben Harris
18. Will Stuart
19. Kearnan Myall
20. Jack Willis
21. Joe Simpson
22. Rob Miller
23. Owain James

[Brandnewtorugby]

Irish;
London Irish: 15 James Marshall, 14 Joe Cokanasiga, 13 Tom Fowlie, 12 Johnny Williams, 11 Alex Lewington, 10 Greig Tonks, 9 Piet van Zyl, 1 Ben Franks, 2 David Paice, 3 Ollie Hoskins, 4 Franco van der Merwe (c), 5 Teofilo Paulo, 6 Arno Botha, 7 Conor Gilsenan, 8 Ofisa Treviranus

Replacements: 16 Dave Porecki, 17 Harry Elrington, 18 Petrus Du Plessis, 19 Sebastian De Chaves, 20 Jake Schatz, 21 Scott Steele, 22 Tommy Bell, 23 Aseli Tikoirotuma 

[Vespula Vulgaris]

I'm reassured by the team we are putting out.  Hope they are all abe to play to their ability and aren't struggling to shake off injuries.

[Raggs]

Hoping we can hold it together and get the win, a TBP would be an obvious "bonus".  I'm perfectly happy for us to go with a "you can score 5, we'll score 8." approach to this game, it really doesn't effect us if Irish get points out of this.

[Raggs]

Consideringthe conditions I'm glad we still tried to play. Thought a few calls went harshly against us but i guess an Irish fan would see some the other way.

All in all happy with the 4 and hoping for some more bodies to come back for the next tough block.

[Brandnewtorugby]

The game ended a little flat as Wasps were so close to the line when it was knocked on.

Not the best week to be a professional sportsman, especially after some tough weeks! At one point the hail and rain was rattling on the roof, it almost sounded like a cheer. The showers came in waves and was the sort of winter rain that makes it hard to keep your eyes open. Both fly halfs scuffed a kick off, and it was quite frustrating at times as a well worked move ended with a dodgy pass and fumble.

Despite the weather making a lottery of errors. Irish played really well, suspect they may have a few surprises left this season.

[Raggs]

Irish have run a few teams fairly close this season, a few bounces of the ball may have made a big difference to their season overall.

Wish Cruse had got that last try though, a hattrick and an extra point would have been nice.

[mike909]

Consideringthe conditions I'm glad we still tried to play. Thought a few calls went harshly against us but i guess an Irish fan would see some the other way.

All in all happy with the 4 and hoping for some more bodies to come back for the next tough block.

Thought both of their tries resulted from wrong calls, especially the second. Jimmy was short of the line and not allowed to get up and dived on, then we fairly won the scrum and got pinged for turning in when the LI TH was nearly at 90 degrees.

Pleased with the win, but the reffing was at times bizzare

[Raggs]

Picked up on the Jimmy thing at the time, but wasn't watching for the scrum, would need to watch it again.

[mike909]

Picked up on the Jimmy thing at the time, but wasn't watching for the scrum, would need to watch it again.

I'm an old prop, I never like to see a team going forwards penalised especially as the scrum was fairly straight and LI looked in disarray

What did you think about the "not out" call at the ruck for the first try? I though once a player on the ground let go, he could not play the ball again and once let go, with no SH in place 9, it was "out"?

[Raggs]

Would need to see it again but would have a lot more sympathy for Irish as we push the limits of not out for the sake of clean ball.

[mike909]

Would need to see it again but would have a lot more sympathy for Irish as we push the limits of not out for the sake of clean ball.

Fair call, another day the penalty could have gone the other way. Its probably why I dislike the current breakdown laws when it was (in the mists of time...) no hands, it was obvious what was out more often and sucked in more of the pack

For interest I've looked back at internationals from Brian Moore's time and the pack competed for the ball as one and the backs had lots of room! Different days but I often wonder if we'd be better off going back to consider the laws as currently it looks too much like RL too often

[Brandnewtorugby]

The one that confused me was the Irish driving maul, looked like it went into touch, no obvious breakaway, but perhaps I missed one. I always thought that if any part of the maul went into touch then it was out, have I got that wrong?