You are not a fan of Lee are you V V?
For me - our capitulation had nothing to do with Lee’s coaching. It was the players that couldn’t deal with the pressure being placed upon them and it wasn’t Lee’s fault we went into the game without key players.
In the first half, we were top drawer and were one successful pass away from an outstanding victory and Lee being lauded.
I thought Charlie played his best game for Wasps, our new signings played well and I’m hopeful we will have a better season.
It's not really about whether I am a personal fan or not. It's about whether he can deliver or not.
I think we can split the role of the coaching team into two main aspects.
Firstly the physical skills of playing rugby, both as an individual and as part of a team. Ball skills, passing, kicking, scrummaging, line out throwing, personal fitness, that kind of thing. I'd drop training ground moves in here.
On this I think our coaches are doing pretty well. We saw one or two loose moments, but overall our skills were pretty good, and there were some lovely plays that had obviously been run on the training ground and then implemented well.
Secondly however I think things like on-field leadership, game management skills, decision-making under pressure, how to manage the ref, psychological strength. And this is where I think we are failing as a team.
We have brilliant players, you can pick pretty much any player in our 1st team and talk about some of the moments of absolute brilliance they have shown. They have the ability, and the skills to dominate. But as a team we are weak, we make poor decisions, we accept the inevitability of loss however well we manage to do briefly, we capitulate almost as if we believe defeat is what we deserve.
To say that the players failing under pressure isn't the fault of the coaches seems utterly bizarre to me. That is exactly what the role of the coaches is.
And Lee is Head Coach. Maybe he's banging on the door to Steve and Derek every day asking for the money to hire the people he needs to in order to turn this around, I genuinely don't know. But the buck ultimately stops with him and he is the one who has to instigate change.
Always a Wasp
