Lee reveals 'three things' he'd love fans to say about club this season

[mike909]

Having a strong and competent set piece is required given how the game is officiated. Until the scrum especially, becomes, again, a way of restarting after a minor infringement rather than a penalty op, there is little choice but to have a solid front 5. We've got that now - when we're fit of course. And it's no different from the packs that took us to Euro finals.

But whilst it's not really a choice to have parity in set piece - it is a choice how to play once ball is secured. We have a better selection of backrowers than most teams, experienced 9 and players who's instinct is to use the ball. And much as I want to see games where we score impossible tries - I do also want to win. Lol's teams had that balance of ambition and power. And I don't see it not being the Wasps way to use power to facilitate use of space and handling.

And I really do want to win games.

That's what I meant by incentives matter.

If the punishment for a knock-on or slightly forward pass in an ambitious backs move is being marched back 40m and then being pushed over your own try line by a rolling maul or another pack in a scrum on your own 5m line you have to do something about it. if you're going to have to invest time and money in making sure your scrum is at least solid and doesn't give away too many penalties you may as well go the incremental step and get a dominant scrum that wins you penalties.

With you 100%. It's nuts of course - and the SH refs tend to make people play a won ball much more often. But as you say - why not make sure and get to play off penalty ball.

[Chunky24]

The 3 I would think we all basically want are:

Positive Attack
Positive Defence
Positive watching experience

I would imagine all of us would have a slightly different view of what each of the first 2 look like and potentially whether the 3rd is results driven or not.

[Westy68]

At this moment in time I'm happy with what Lee has said and I'm not a fan of his. I'm sick of us being dominated in the scrum and physically getting beaten up. For me Lee is saying what I expected/hope he would say, we will compete at scrums and mauls.

I didn't take it as this is the only way we are going to play, I could be wrong but I'll give it 2/3 games and see how we play.

[Vespula Vulgaris]

So you don't think a more dominant line out brings greater clarity of thinking when it comes to making the right line out calls?

I think our lineout had been dominant all game, if anything it caused the overconfidence in thinking that with the game on the line, a 5m lineout in torrential rain and a howling gale was the right time to go long. If we'd been less dominant maybe we'd have thrown short and actually caught our own ball.

[Vespula Vulgaris]

We haven't won any silver since 2008. We've been in 2 finals in 2017 and 2020 and come up just short twice to Exeter. That's what pisses me off, end of.

One loss was down to Nathan ignoring the ref and giving away a penalty in the dying moments. The other to a poor decision to go long at the line-out in horrific weather.

The first was arrogance, the second was naivety. Neither would have changed with a dominant pack.

That of course is simply conjecture. With a more dominant pack, we may not have found ourselves in those positions in the first place.

True, Exeter weren't in those positions, neither were the EAs. But I dislike watching both of those teams.  Forward dominated play is not who we are, whether it is incremental rucks creeping up the field like Exeter, or Kick chase with a healthy sprinkling of cheating like Sarries.  We got to the finals twice playing expansive ambitious heads-up rugby and we missed out by a whisker both times.  That to me is no reason to stop playing the way we do.

[wasps]

Let's not forget that the ability to drive the ball forward through big forwards may keep the opposition defence tight.


They won't be able to spread wide as quickly if we have a genuine forward threat on the fringes of rucks and in mauls.


This will create more space out wide and give our play makers a fraction more time to make the right call.




The modern game has seen defences become so organised that they rarely commit to rucks and it's hard to find gaps or create overlaps.
If we can punch holes at the breakdown we may create gaps and overlaps that can be exploited by quick thinking backs

[westwaleswasp]

Totally get where Ross et al are coming from..and of course we need a good pack. But also, I don't want to see endless box kicks, and backs doing teapot impressions -  that won't get bums on seats. Let us hope that we have ambition  when we start the season. I have to say I genuinely did not enjoy several of our winning performances last year, some of those games were dire. I think for me the big metric is the number of times we kick.

[HDAWG]

I guess my initial ramblings were I'm just not excited by the team currently. I feel an emphasis on being diet Exeter or Springboks. Just feels bizarre to watch a team with an underwhelming identity compared to what we were when Blackett took over. Honestly just want a team with exciting backs and I don't care how we get there