Sale Sharks v Wasps: Post match thoughts.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

Covid40.
Hello fella. Hats off to you for making the journey north.
I hope you managed to get to the game on time.
And enjoy the experience. 
Every team needs hard-core fans like yourself.

In previous weeks, you’ve been quite scathing about certain individuals, as well as team performances.

In my eyes, I saw a Wasps team who were out on their feet. Exhausted.
Stooke could hardly stand by the end. Goppeth slow in body and mind. Frost mentally shot.

The players, because of lack of rotation, looked like they were playing their third game in a week.
These are talented guys…busting a nut to try and be international quality, because that’s what it takes to win these days.
But they looked like they were simply hanging in there.

And let’s be honest, players like Miller or Atkinson aren’t really any better than what’s already in the squad.

Covid40….what are your thoughts, having been there today?
Personally, I don’t believe this is a fault of poor coaching.
And I don’t think it’s a result of poor selection.
Nor, even of player effort.

Personally, I simply believe we’ve had a catastrophic range of injuries, especially to key players, meaning lack of rotation, lack of rest time….and a complete mix and muddle of combinations.

It’s FUBAR.

So I appropriation no blame.
I don’t want to judge neither players nor coaching staff.
I’ll reserve all judgment until mid February, when 15-18 main players are back, not only on the pitch, but to add wisdom and creativity in training.
How on earth can you run key moves with only a few players on the training paddock??
There’s not enough players to provide competitive opposition!!

Covid40, as a big fan, I just wanted to get your perspective…and whether your thoughts and beliefs had changed this afternoon, despite the uncomfortable result.

It's a fair comment about fatigue. I mentioned it during the game, so many players looked knackered. But, they will not be getting any rest any time soon. The next 5 games are going to be murder.

[Vespula Vulgaris]

If the players are knackered I would ask why. When we were playing 2 games a week they didn't look knackered, and we were winning.

But they weren't training half as much.

So more coached training means exhausted players and worse performances. I'm not sure that is how it is supposed to work.

[Covkid40]

Covid40.
Hello fella. Hats off to you for making the journey north.
I hope you managed to get to the game on time.
And enjoy the experience. 
Every team needs hard-core fans like yourself.

In previous weeks, you’ve been quite scathing about certain individuals, as well as team performances.

In my eyes, I saw a Wasps team who were out on their feet. Exhausted.
Stooke could hardly stand by the end. Goppeth slow in body and mind. Frost mentally shot.

The players, because of lack of rotation, looked like they were playing their third game in a week.
These are talented guys…busting a nut to try and be international quality, because that’s what it takes to win these days.
But they looked like they were simply hanging in there.

And let’s be honest, players like Miller or Atkinson aren’t really any better than what’s already in the squad.

Covid40….what are your thoughts, having been there today?
Personally, I don’t believe this is a fault of poor coaching.
And I don’t think it’s a result of poor selection.
Nor, even of player effort.

Personally, I simply believe we’ve had a catastrophic range of injuries, especially to key players, meaning lack of rotation, lack of rest time….and a complete mix and muddle of combinations.

It’s FUBAR.

So I appropriation no blame.
I don’t want to judge neither players nor coaching staff.
I’ll reserve all judgment until mid February, when 15-18 main players are back, not only on the pitch, but to add wisdom and creativity in training.
How on earth can you run key moves with only a few players on the training paddock??
There’s not enough players to provide competitive opposition!!

Covid40, as a big fan, I just wanted to get your perspective…and whether your thoughts and beliefs had changed this afternoon, despite the uncomfortable result.

Firstly there was no doubting the effort but in elite sports giving 100% effort should be a given. I don’t buy in with the players being tired they had the European week off, Lee has already stated that with players back in training the intensity has gone up with the extra bodies back so that can’t be used as an excuse. Last week I praised the whole team including Jacob who I have been very critical of recently. Today was just baffling we tried to run through them which just played to their strengths and when that didn’t work we didn’t try anything different. We really miss Dobby more than any other player he mixes things up and keeps the opposition on the back foot. Our ball retention needs to be better we just give the ball away so cheaply. MLB had a stinker and his decision making has always been questionable, I get we have little other options at the minute but the truth is he is a squad member at best. For me the reason we are struggling is we just don’t do the basics well enough, you have to earn the right play free flowing rugby and we are just not doing that. When all the injured players are back we will undoubtedly be better but if we keep up the number of unforced errors and penalties I can’t see the results changing.

[HDAWG]

If the players are knackered I would ask why. When we were playing 2 games a week they didn't look knackered, and we were winning.

But they weren't training half as much.

So more coached training means exhausted players and worse performances. I'm not sure that is how it is supposed to work.

Just gonna add Mitchell's history is knackered over trained players. Probably unrelated but thought it's relevant to mention.

[backdoc]

Yes, the interview with Dan Frost talked about their fitness towards the end of the game being crucial to the hopes of winning.

Sale have more physicality than us.

They also have Alex Sanderson who has 10 years of coaching experience at offensive defence. What they do is challenge the ref at the offside line, and when the ref backs down [bottles it], they have a metre advantage at every contest. The opposition has to be very smart/quick/experienced to deal with this at 9/10. We didn't show any of this today.
With them able to defend in this way, our makeshift 9/10 simply shipped the ball to the nearest willing forward who was then powered backward in the tackle.

[westwaleswasp]

The thing is Sale played exactly how we would expect. Physical on the break down, blitz defence, possession based.
Not quite sure what plans we had beyond arm wrestling a team that thrive on arm wrestles.
We certainly did not punish the over eager blitz, historically when teams blitzed us we dealt with it.
To be honest, looking at the starting backs, I preferred theirs.
I wonder if Lee will consider a Sarries game type rotation at any point?

[Garuda]

I heard commentary say Atkinson came on at 12, is that correct? Or did Gopperth shift to 12 with Atkinson at 10?

Late reply I know, but Atkinson played 10, Jimmy moved into midfield.

[HDAWG]

I heard commentary say Atkinson came on at 12, is that correct? Or did Gopperth shift to 12 with Atkinson at 10?

Late reply I know, but Atkinson played 10, Jimmy moved into midfield.

Thank you. We certainly looked better in that setup, but was that us setup better or Sale's fatigue?

[welsh wasp]

Interesting to compare the positive thread about the win against London Irish and then this depressing one about the loss and performance against Sale. Am I right in thinking that Irish have had a better season so far than Sale?
What did we lose in a week? It can't just have been tiredness as mentioned several times in this thread.

[Westy68]

Interesting to compare the positive thread about the win against London Irish and then this depressing one about the loss and performance against Sale. Am I right in thinking that Irish have had a better season so far than Sale?
What did we lose in a week? It can't just have been tiredness as mentioned several times in this thread.

Bad tactics was the major problem, also a massive drop in intensity, maybe down to tiredness but we do it far to often

[Shugs]

Sale and Irish are polar opposites style wise. Sale are all about physicality and that is what we couldn’t cope with. We couldn’t make any yards. That’s why our tactics were questionable - we just kept doing the same thing and hoping for a different outcome. We should have been mixing it up with chips over the top etc making their big pack turn.

[Mellie]

We were hopeless at the breakdown against Sale and severely under resourced there. Against Irish we won that area including numerous turnovers.

I noticed yesterday, 2 continuing Wasps issues highlighted in Quins first try. Glaws backs were all looking inwards at where the ball was coming from with no awareness of where the wider attack was coming from,  leaving a gap that Quins exploited. We do that far too often as well. The Quins backs had good alignment too allowing them to hit their passes at speed to exploit the opportunity. Against Sale our backs were far too flat which killed any momentum.