Worcester v Wasps: Post match thoughts.

[Wombles]

Close but no cigar

Can’t go 18 points behind away and expect to win

2 points better than 1

We nearly got there, we nearly got a win, but on the balance of play over the 80 minutes it feels like the right result. Warriors were stronger in the scrum for the majority, and spent 20 minutes at 14 men, yet still held out. Their supporters need to act with more class, booing the oppo kicker was frankly an embarrassment, but thankfully their team remained classy throughout.

We still look all at sea at times. Whether it is cheap penalties, unforced errors or moves breaking down, we just seem a half a second behind in thought and deed. Too many passes were forced and too many times we ran laterally. If you cannot score more points than your opposition when you have a man up you don’t really deserve to win the game.

On the positives as our bench came on our game improved, De Chavis was excellent, as was Frost, Alfie a level above. Porter and Wolfstenholme were good, but like Umaga both need to start making moves forwards in performance and control. Umaga to be fair was much improved, people may criticise how many times he took it to the line, got tackled and isolated. However if you look at the running lines of his supporting players they were far to flat, and making any pass to them impossible, just sitting that little bit deeper would of allowed much more gain in the wider channels.

We are hanging in there by our fingertips for top 6 now. I think any thoughts of going for silverware now are fanciful. Injuries have plagued us, and it is those that are injured and the length of the injuries that has pretty much torpedoed our season. I would love to be proved wrong, but all focus should be on really getting a squad experienced and established, with hopefully, our world class facilities making a difference that we need to reduce the injury toll.

Onto Europe we go.

Chris

Once a Wasp ALWAYS a Wasp.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

I didn't see any improvement over the Gloucester game. To do the same thing, and expect different results, is the definition of insanity.

We will continue to lose games until we can replace some of the weak points. Our scrum was yet again going backwards at most points, and our attacking lineout maul was not well organised.

Munster next week, and I am not hopeful.

[Covkid40]

Totally agree no improvement from last week. We seem to have sorted the lineouts but are scrummaging is woeful. My worry is we are waiting for the injured players to return and think everything will be ok. How much will they improve us? I agree some of the injuries at quality players but is launchbury going to improve our second row that much considering how well they have done, Jack would improve any team but with the flankers we have will it be a massive improvement? The centres will definitely improve. Will Charlie improve the 10 position? We just don’t know. The one player we need back more than most is Robson, Wasps are a totally different proposition when he’s on the pitch.

[Wombles]

To a point I agree NWW. Unfortunately it is the amount of injuries, the length of the injuries and most importantly who the injuries are to that is scuppering any chance of evolution of our game at present. The number of short term loans, use of wider squad players, and more inexperienced players thrown together at short notice has not allowed relationships to develop. We are stagnating at present, and I do not think it is down to lack of effort or coaching input, I think it is simply down to injuries now allowing the team to evolve together.

Until we fix the injury issue, and my hope is we will now we have the facilities we will simply keep trying to keep our heads above water. We need those injured back. This is why this season is a no go, because if we try to be competitive for silverware we risk rushing too many back to soon. We need to reset our goals to gaining experience to the wider team in order to develop strength in depth, and gently reintroduce our injured key players. Season aim now should simply be Champions cup rugby for next season.

[Heathen]

In the league the top 7 sides are starting to creep away from the next 6. Bath look to be a lost cause.

Our next 5 leagues game s are Irish, Sharks, Tigers, Cheats and Exeter. I cannot see us garnering too may points from them, unless we have a radical upturn in form.

As a relief from potential defeats, our game after that is Bath at home.

At this stage, Champions Cup next season must be in doubt.

[Rossm]

I thought, considering the very tricky crossfield gusting wind, that Fin Smith's kicking stats were remarkable. Jacob did miss a couple of touch finders - one a penalty early on I think. The wind simply pushed the ball well off course.

[HDAWG]

It's the same players getting zero rotation. Desperately need injured players to return and signings for next season in the backline. I don't think we'll achieve top 6, and for next season we need to somehow control the injuries. It's identical to 2018/19 season. I honestly think rotation would solve a lot of issues.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

I suppose, in summary, I am disappointed, again. Mistakes that were there last week have remained. We could, and should, have won both matches, irrespective of our injury list.

[Shugs]

That’s the frustration. We should have won both of the last two games. The amount of points we gifted Wuss today was ridiculous. Must admit that my abiding thought is really feeling sorry for the likes of Stooke, Willis, Barbeary Frost and Bassett who are exceptional week in week out and have to swallow the continued mistakes of others. We have a lot of injuries but really only Launchbury, Willis, Robson and Fekitoa would be guaranteed of being in today’s 23.  Our scrum penalties are a huge worry and whilst West will sort LH I don’t see a solution at TH. The basics or lack of them are killing us at the moment and we’re losing to worse teams than we are.

[Bloke in North Dorset]

A few thoughts on yet another frustrating performance:

We were sat on the 10m line and the wind was deceptively strong. One of Jacob’s restarts in the first half went over the 10m line and then got blown back.

Did we lose it because we missed a couple of conversions? In first half Warriors took two penalty kicks that were a long way out rather than go for the corner, even though their lineout was working well. I said to my mate at the time that it looked like a good game management strategy. It was obvious they needed to build scoreboard pressure for when Wasps had the wind.

(I know we all like to see teams go for the corner but I would be interested to see some stats on conversion rates for those kicks)

We talk a lot about transitioning from defence to attack when we get a turnover, but at least two of their tries were the result of them getting turnover. And there were others incidents where they came close. We do look vulnerable when losing the ball, it happened a couple of times last week as well.

Watson isn’t a full back. I don’t know what he his but he doesn’t look confident and his positional play in defence is dubious, to say the least. I’m was a little bit disappointed because I like him, but seeing him when the camera isn’t on him gave me a different perspective. Maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh on a single game, but that was my gut feel at the time.

When we were receiving restarts near us there was confusion in the receiving pods every time. Communication was woeful and there was lots of looking around to see who should take the ball. They let at least one hit the grass as they all looked at each other.

Alfie, Gabby and Sam Wolstenholme all made a big impact on the game, as expected. I know Sam came on when we had started to get a lot more from the foot ball but he does look the sharper of the two. Porter struck me as being quite slow to the ball and even with time his passing accuracy was poor, which didn’t help Jacob. Overall I thought there was some quite poor passing along line the first half.

A lot has been said about Jacob and the only comment I’ll make for this game is that my mate thought his decision making was quite poor and he was not impressed. I didn’t think he was that bad given the circumstances.

The Worcester fans around us were equally disgusted with the booing at the conversion attempt at the last try.

As a sign off, the lady I was sitting next to is a Bristol STH and they’d been at Friday night’s game and her husband a Wasps fan. It was hard to fathom who is the most frustrated.

[coddy]

I thought Umaga had a good game, he looked for and went through gaps when it was on and passed the ball on when that was the better option. Also pleased to see he respected the wind with his touch finders and didn't go for the hero kick.

[hopwood]

It's the same players getting zero rotation. Desperately need injured players to return and signings for next season in the backline. I don't think we'll achieve top 6, and for next season we need to somehow control the injuries. It's identical to 2018/19 season. I honestly think rotation would solve a lot of issues.

This.

[Rossm]

I thought Umaga had a good game, he looked for and went through gaps when it was on and passed the ball on when that was the better option. Also pleased to see he respected the wind with his touch finders and didn't go for the hero kick.

I think that Jacob did go for one early in the game but the wind blew it back infield and he missed touch. After that miss, his kicks appeared to be mainly more conservative.

[Peej]

I thought Umaga had a good game, he looked for and went through gaps when it was on and passed the ball on when that was the better option. Also pleased to see he respected the wind with his touch finders and didn't go for the hero kick.

I think that Jacob did go for one early in the game but the wind blew it back infield and he missed touch. After that miss, his kicks appeared to be mainly more conservative.

He missed two penalties to touch and a kick from hand that invited pressure. It just isn't good enough. Combined with loose passing and poor decisions from the rest of the team we are just nosediving currently.

We are making average teams look very good. People were clamouring for Dai's sacking well before this level of performance

[Rossm]

I thought Umaga had a good game, he looked for and went through gaps when it was on and passed the ball on when that was the better option. Also pleased to see he respected the wind with his touch finders and didn't go for the hero kick.

I think that Jacob did go for one early in the game but the wind blew it back infield and he missed touch. After that miss, his kicks appeared to be mainly more conservative.

He missed two penalties to touch and a kick from hand that invited pressure. It just isn't good enough. Combined with loose passing and poor decisions from the rest of the team we are just nosediving currently.

We are making average teams look very good. People were clamouring for Dai's sacking well before this level of performance

I do hope you are not including me in your broad generalisation of 'people'? A few might have done but the majority? I don't recollect any 'clamouring for Dai's sacking'?