Gloucester v Wasps: Post Match Thoughts

[Mellie]

I was most disappointed with the last 5 minutes. A clear opportunity to win it. Again we panicked a bit instead of keeping hold of the ball until we scored. I thought we would and was hoping it would be fairly central. But we went wide without any obvious gap and tried the heroic offload instead of going back inside and resetting.

That's where coaches can improve the team by teaching them the value of composure. The clock may be in the red but play continues until there is a non penalty stoppage. So keep playing smart and safe for as long as it takes.

[mike909]

We have form for this whereby we concede a couple of penalities; innocuously to begin with but within those penalities they'll often be one that the pundits (and players) feel should have gone to them and not against them.  It seems to set off a chain-reaction whereby we got on the wrong side of the ref and often then spiral into a series of penalities and all this pressure.  It happened yesterday several times where both Alfie and Launch were clearly remonstrating with the ref.

There's a fine line here as it's probably a split view here between suggesting we park any decision against us, suck it up and get set to go again.  But there are others who will rightly point out that perhaps we need to get better and be able to talk to the ref.  It feels like the way we approach the ref rubs them up the wrong way.

This is the point - better made - that I was making in another thread. You have to be ref savvy as looking at the calls made (you can't change them...) we probably felt we were being held to a higher standard than Glaws. But it was our fault for not literally taking a step back and avoiding giving the ref a chance to ping us, in periods of play where the run of decisions go against. And they will, every game.

It's part of the inability to "put our foot on the ball". And trying to be too clever. Some refs don't like turnovers, some don't seem to like legal competition at breakdown, some seem to allow waaay more than the Laws suggest (and indeed the WR guidance) But - we seem to fail to adapt.....It's as if we're trying to be get "top turnover" when allowing the opposition the ball and tackling them behind the gain line is the better option.

We're currently playing, too often, as less than the sum of the parts. It's not a good look and in the end - see England Cricket - it can come down to the coaches and others who set the "tone". It's not "rugby" to sack coaches - but surely we're on notice that things cannot go on like this.

Yes, it's v early in the campaign, but my football team (Fulham..) showed in virtually every game since promotion that they were organised and a royal pain to play against. We look like we're too often not at the races in the top two inches.

[wasps]

Skivington is getting credit for changing his game plan and stopping the kicking.


We're criticising Wasps for not changing our plan when it feel apart in the second half.


However, now that I think about it, Skivington didn't change the plan during the first half. It was only after half time that the plan was changed.
If Gloucester are being commended for changing game plan, then why didn't they do it after 20/30 minutes of the first half when it clearly wasn't working and was costing them?


I think the answer is that all teams struggle to change game plans during the game.
It often requires a stop and reset, and input from the coaches

[Shugs]

Gloucester could have changed game plan all they liked. If we’d have kept our discipline instead of losing our heads we would have seen the game out from 21-0 up with 40 minutes left.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

Skivington is getting credit for changing his game plan and stopping the kicking.


We're criticising Wasps for not changing our plan when it feel apart in the second half.


However, now that I think about it, Skivington didn't change the plan during the first half. It was only after half time that the plan was changed.
If Gloucester are being commended for changing game plan, then why didn't they do it after 20/30 minutes of the first half when it clearly wasn't working and was costing them?


I think the answer is that all teams struggle to change game plans during the game.
It often requires a stop and reset, and input from the coaches

Unless you have a Plan B and Plan C.

We must have had a plan for if they kicked everything to us. It looked like we had a plan anyway.

So, we must have had a plan if they didn't do that. Top of all the plans must have been, do NOT, under any circumstances, give the ball to LRZ. So, the brainless idiots decided to do flat crash balls, knowing full well you drop 50% of those at best. Who in their right minds even bothers coaching those? Oh, yes, Wasps. Look at the Odendaal try. A flat pass yes, NOT a crash ball, not under pressure to drop it. That's how you do that. Go back and look at the Odogwu try, was it the year before last, vs Exeter? He had time to receive the ball and get motoring.

I despair that anybody wearing those blue shirts on Sunday has a brain with an IQ above 50 at times. Porter certainly didn't seem to have.

[Jac A]

There were skill problems last year, but a common theme was the way we went in and out of matches, discipline, shape, play all fell apart and it led to us losing more than winning. When you go 39 - 14 ahead with 19 minutes to go at Irish and end up drawing 42 all you know their is something missing in the mindset.

Today felt like we picked up from where we left off at the end of last season at Irish, so two games in a row we’ve capitulated huge leads.

Clearly, we are no further forward than we were at the end of the last season. Our ability to throw a game away when holding a significant advantage, manifests itself yet again. Competence and cohesion went out of the window at HT.

We have plenty of examples from last season -v Irish is the easiest to recall- but the way we dip in and out of games is worrying in its regularity.

Reading through the post since Sunday's game there seems to be a real belief that we frequently throw away leads and that this was the case for last season especially. There is, however, nothing to back that up. The London Irish game seems to do a lot of heavy lifting in people's minds about our fragility.

I remember posting in the aftermath of the LI game that in the 10 Premiership games before that match we were behind at half-time in all except 3 (and in one of which we were level) and that we went on to win 7 of those games. In those 10 games we scored 98 points in the last 25 mins and conceded only 30.

Looking at the whole of last season, in the last quarter of the game we scored more points in 14 out of 24 games (58%), in 2 games both teams scored the same amount and so there were 8 games when the opposition scored more in the last 20 mins (33%). In all those 24 games we were only ahead with 20 mins to go and went on to lose once - against Quins.

We seem to forget many of the occasions when we came from behind to win such as against Bath when we were 17 - 24 down with 11 minutes to play and ended up winning 41 - 24. Or against Exeter when we were 26 - 8 down at one point and even on 78 mins were 26 - 15 down and still won 26 - 27. Going back to the end of the season before it was us that staged the biggest comeback in the Premiership from 33 - 10 down at half time to win 36 - 39 after showing tremendous composure to play 6 minutes with the clock in the red, hammering away on their try line without giving the ball away and eventually getting over.

Yes, we had a terrible second half yesterday and yes, the game against Irish last season was similarly horrifying to watch but I really don't think that this is such a major problem. We have shown as a squad that we can be the team that comes back. We have shown that we can hold onto a lead - see Saracens or Tigers in January or Gloucester in April.

[HDAWG]

Reading through the post since Sunday's game there seems to be a real belief that we frequently throw away leads and that this was the case for last season especially. There is, however, nothing to back that up. The London Irish game seems to do a lot of heavy lifting in people's minds about our fragility.

For me it was just bad memories against Skiv's Gloucester a couple of seasons ago. And a general automatic negative mindset I have with the team currently.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

Whilst we have not capitulated at the end of every game, in so many games we had 40 or more minutes of dire lack of mastery of the game. Be it the start, the middle, or the end. It matters not when you slip on the banana skin, just that you do, and with a total lack of grace.

[Shugs]

You’re probably right Jac. But the pain involved means they linger longer. The four most recent ones that still irk me are the away game at Quins three or four years ago, the Clermont Europe game, Irish away last year and Glaws yesterday.

[Jac A]

You’re probably right Jac. But the pain involved means they linger longer. The four most recent ones that still irk me are the away game at Quins three or four years ago, the Clermont Europe game, Irish away last year and Glaws yesterday.

Absolutely Shugs, I think that is definitely at play that those stinging defeats stay in the memory longer and more easily come to mind when something similar happens. I am, however, a natural optimist and always try to balance the positives that we have achieved with those times we have collapsed and it erks a little when people say we always consipre to throw the game away, we can't see it out or we lack the composure to come back and force a win. We've done all of that - just maybe not consistently.

[Vespula Vulgaris]

The absolute train wreck of a second half may well be unusual, but us mixing brilliant play with abysmal, passion with absolute lack of commitment, backing ourselves to play with backing ourselves to know the rules better than the ref is not unusual.

I for one am not saying that we often create a lead and let it go. I'm saying there is something fundamentally wrong with our squad, and that game typifies it perfectly.

[Shugs]

Completely take your point VV but I do think this squad has a better chance than the previous two seasons. Why? The following:
1) Atkinsons experience from the last two years gives us a potentially top class 10.
2) Odendaal looks like what we need at 12 and Spink is developing at 13.
3) When fit our front row will put us in the right part of the field more often than not.
We’ve undoubtedly got to win some games quickly but equally we arrived at Kingsholm with 1 LH and 2 second rows. But I agree - nearly can’t go on forever and as such I think the next half a dozen games are really critical for us.

[westwaleswasp]

It reminded me of Quins home last year, not Irish.

[mike909]

Completely take your point VV but I do think this squad has a better chance than the previous two seasons. Why? The following:
1) Atkinsons experience from the last two years gives us a potentially top class 10.
2) Odendaal looks like what we need at 12 and Spink is developing at 13.
3) When fit our front row will put us in the right part of the field more often than not.
We’ve undoubtedly got to win some games quickly but equally we arrived at Kingsholm with 1 LH and 2 second rows. But I agree - nearly can’t go on forever and as such I think the next half a dozen games are really critical for us.

That seems fair - I've (sad...) just looked back over all of last season's games and we're as often scoring late on as conceding such that our season was one where a couple of changed results would have made a material difference in league position. Which - given last season's injury issues - was a decent if not great outcome.

I do think that the game the other day was in part our tendency towards flakiness, but as much just one of those things. I do think we've taken the games that stick in the mind and extrapolated rather?

This season - I do think for all those reasons - we will do better, but last season does demonstrate how a small number of games will probably "make or break" our season. Perhaps a good thing to get a lesson early doors to concentrate minds as there were some upsides in terms of several players including 10 and 12 and SR.

I've taken a deep breath and will aim to be optimistic.

[Rossm]

My post match thought(s): despite playing for roughly 10 minutes with 13 players, we were never actually out of the game pointswise. A converted try would have given us a win. Deserved? Well that is quite irrelevant. It's only the final score that counts. We needed a voice of experience and authority to make it quite clear to the team that the game was still very winnable. I am not convinced that Joe Launch, magnificent Wasp that he is, has this. Without Brad (bad thumb injury) and Dobby (still don't know why he came off so early at 55 mins), who else? I would suggest that Burger Odendaal might become such a voice. He has captained the Lions and Bulls in Super Rugby, the Currie Cup and more recently the United Rugby Championship. Vinny Koch? He's certainly got the experience. But we need someone who will be with us all season and is likely to go the full 80. Brad of course fits the bill. But he'll probably be out for a few weeks. I hope Dobby's not injured as well.