So what actually is the problem?

[Westy68]

The players who are injured are just to good not to be missed on match day and training.

I’m really concerned about Jack if he can make it back. Swelling after 10 months is worrying, obviously I’m only guessing but someone with more knowledge maybe able to correct me.

We are not big spenders and therefore the drop off to 2nd choice is likely to be pretty big.

Also have to agree Porter is just not good enough and it effects Jacob who has a fine line of being good or poor

[InBetweenWasp]

Is there actually any recent comments from the Club about not paying up to the (current) salary cap?

There were a few seasons where we were reportedly well under the cap.  But wondering whether that's actually the case now that it's been reduced.

[Westy68]

Also isn’t next season only 1 marquee player, which surely must effect some teams

[Rossm]

Nice vid of Wusty's try made by Jacob's break and Alfie's support running.

I would also suggest that Zach's run infield back to the forwards to set up the breakdown was a thoughtful move.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1467790897278504964

[Neils]

Is there actually any recent comments from the Club about not paying up to the (current) salary cap?

There were a few seasons where we were reportedly well under the cap.  But wondering whether that's actually the case now that it's been reduced.

Last discussion I had with anyone senior was we are below but not too far below. That was about 6/7 weeks ago. I may have been told fibs of course.

[wasps]

Also isn’t next season only 1 marquee player, which surely must effect some teams

I'm assuming Fekitoa and launchbury are the 2 marquee players currently.... Although it's hard to be sure.

That may be where the rumours of Fekitoa leaving come from.
He's currently outside the cap but next season will need to be fitted inside it.... And is it a smaller cap next year?

[Bloke in North Dorset]

Of course there's no simple solution, if there were I'm sure the coaches, especially Mitch, would have spotted it but here's my two penn'orth FWIW:

Confidence, lack thereof. Losing is habit forming, just like winning, and teams that lose matches in the way we have soon start to lose confidence. Once that happens you get tense and try too hard and feel more tired at the end of a game. Knocks and niggles hurt more. You snatch at passes and try too hard and things go wrong.

Change of emphasis in training? At the end of the Covid season Lee made a comment that you have to earn the right to throw the ball around as we were doing and I paraphrase, but he said the Wasps way of we'll score more tries tan you was great but he wanted to put some more emphasis on defence. Have they been doing that and coaching out spontaneity?

My cure? Looking at what happened to Quins I don't propose sacking any of the coaching staff but perhaps they should just tell the players to get on with it for a few weeks and leave them to organise most of their own game plans?

[westwaleswasp]

Short answer, for all the talk of Brookes being lazy etc., every club thinking of winning titles needs a quality front row and another quality front row. We have effectively not replaced our best scrummager. JTA upturning in terms of not conceding as many pens has unfortunately coincided with the LH that has been giving them away like sweeties. We are a long way from where we need to be.

Our signings in the second row have turned a weakness into a strength. Our back row is top, top class with options on the bench that change matches. Our front row is weaker than it was, due to the props, and it was not stellar to start.

Guys like Kiberige, Bassett, Watson, Minozzi are ok to very good players but good players plus a ten who blows very hot and cold and a rookie 9 plus zero confidence as a whole won't win. Stick Christian Wade into our team and we score more tries because he creates holes just by being there, a bit like Worcester did with DVdM. We don't have anyone like that now.  Every week we play a team and I look at their back three and am more scared than I would be with ours more often than not. Odogwu might change that- if he is not a centre.

It is all confidence and fine margins, scoring 4 tries every game is a good habit, but we are where we are.

[Mellie]

Having watched the whole game back, I'd say apart from the considerable prop issues the main problem is a few players (Watson, Kibberige and Porter in this game) have concentration dips and a tendency to switch off when things don't go as planned. Even Brad did this for the first Worcester try. We lacked overall intensity as a team. If everyone had played to the level shown by Dan Frost, Tom Willis, Josh and Alfie we would have been fine.

I thought Jacob played quite well. He can make errors and often tries too hard afterwards but in this game he did a lot of good things including in defence. The missed touch kicks were excusable given the wind - Worcester missed some as well. The score from the kick that was run back was not his fault. The missed tackles, dog leg defence and complete absence of defenders when Umaga, Frost and Porter stopped Kitchener from scoring was. He does need to work on game management but so does the whole team.

At scrum half Porter is not commanding at all and looks awkward. Woosie was far better but did have a kick charged down, though given no protection.

Execution is not good enough at the moment but can be fixed in training but is more difficult when constantly switching players due to injury.

Hopefully we can improve enough to win and get a bit of confidence over the next few months and end the season well when key players return. For me I'd like to see a step up from a few more players so we have real depth in future.

[welsh wasp]

To start with the positive, we have been close to winning our last two Premiership games. So much improved with some injured players coming back. That should, fingers crossed by all of us, get better in the next few weeks.
To criticise one of the contributions here - saying "Mills is a joke" is cruel and unnecessary. I assume you meant having him injured for so long - but the words are wrong. And he must be desperate to get back on the field and support Jacob.
Some comments here that our scrum has been weak - together with comments about how effective our second and back rows are, especially with two new second rows. We have suffered with so many injuries and also new players in the front row - plus a hooker with potential in Frost. The actual scrums need to be improved but having so many new players must be a challenge for players and coaches.
Someone wants Mitchell as DOR. Rather like football supporters who always want the manager sacked. Worth remembering that he was not that successful when he was our DOR some years ago. He may be in the right supporting position now.

[westwaleswasp]

WW, Our scrum has been  weak, it is not arguable- I am not sure if you are arguing on that, mind you,  but the stats for pens conceded in the last month have us at the bottom end of the table, and Frost has said it is not up to scratch in interview. Most of the pens are on the LH for stepping and going round the corner, but is that just down to the LH, I don't know myself.

One of our new signings was Scholtz, I would like to know what has happened there as we have not seen him.

[Heathen]

When Westy is fully match fit our scrum will improve big time.

[wasps]

Last season, Biyi Alo looked like he would be our replacement for Brookes.
His scrummaging was solid, and he was also capable of some rampaging runs in the loose. It was just stamina/match fitness that he needed to work on.
With JTA backing him up (although potentially starting) we had 2 good options at TH.


On the LH side, we should be fine with West and Harris.
Maybe not dominant, but they've previously shown they can at least get parity with most other front rows.


Of those 4 names, we've only started 1 game this season with any 2 of them.

I don't want to detract what the likes of Scholtz, Hislop or Reid may bring to Wasps, but if we're never able to start games with our best props then we're going to struggle at scrum time