Wasps v Bristol: Post Match Thoughts.

[Shugs]

Alfie is a terrific player. But…..Shields is a shoe in at 6. T Willis has to play 8. Willis J has to play and Carr must be in each 23. Time to re-visit the hooker debate?

[Rossm]

Passing practice is all very well. But there is no pressure on the training ground. Giving a pass. taking a pass and holding onto the ball go to pieces in our game. Are we holding the ball too lightly, always seeking an offload? Do our passes have just a little bit too much zip on them? Do they go to the right player? Somethings fundamentally wrong and I don't know what it is. My playing experience is 50 years ago and it's a different game now. I played front row (hooker and TH) and scored 1 try in 4 years. Actually 2, when I dribbled the ball over the line and fell on it but it got disallowed. Still rankles

[Westy68]

Jack is a 7, don’t mind Tom at 6 but he is much better at 8, so really has to play there. Not sure who we can play at 6 with Brad injured apart from Tom, so a problem.

Alfie maybe needs to switch back to hooker, not sure what to do about him. He is a very good player but it’s just not working for him

[Rossm]

As an aside, the pitch looked good and I thought it held up well.

[Neils]

As an aside, the pitch looked good and I thought it held up well.

Yes looked very good. Almost as good as the Edinburgh pitch I am currently watching. Hey a team that can catch and hold the ball!

[Rugbyintheblood]

Like watching the Keystone Cops today. Felt like shouting ‘Calm down, calm down’ throughout the game. It all looked so frantic.

Passing was crazy …. Or was it the catching? It’s almost like the guys wanted to see who could fling out the most reckless pass just to see if they could make their team mate drop it.

Sorry to say that on that performance Alfie is our 4th choice No 8 (behind Tom, Nizaam and Brad). IMHO he’s a hooker. 

On a more positive note, I was impressed by all the new guys Odendaal, Ryan and McDonald.

Does anybody know how many passes we made in that game v the average in the Premiership?

[Neils]

I have said it before - teams have worked out Alfie especially at No 8. They know he is a blitzing selfish player. Rarely passes so if you stop him on a solo run you can usually get the ball back.
Exciting is great if it gets you somewhere.

[InBetweenWasp]

Sorry to say that on that performance Alfie is our 4th choice No 8 (behind Tom, Nizaam and Brad). IMHO he’s a hooker.

What makes him more of a hooker than an 8?

[Jac A]

Does anybody know how many passes we made in that game v the average in the Premiership?

We made 201 passes.

Average this week was 128 passes.

We also made 164 carries and ran 687 metres. Second half we had 83% territory and 63% possession. Sadly, all pointless as we couldn't catch the ball.

[hopwood]

Andy, if we can cut out the handling errors and not drop the ball so often, then phases and sustained pressure will happen.

+1

[Vespula Vulgaris]

Andy, if we can cut out the handling errors and not drop the ball so often, then phases and sustained pressure will happen.

+1

Isn't that just saying that if we played better we'd do better?

[hopwood]

Does anybody know how many passes we made in that game v the average in the Premiership?

We made 201 passes.

Average this week was 128 passes.

We also made 164 carries and ran 687 metres. Second half we had 83% territory and 63% possession. Sadly, all pointless as we couldn't catch the ball.

Thanks Jac. Some useful stats to provide a bit of balance.
I watched the whole game on a big TV with no distractions.
I’m also not someone who gets overlying emotional about rugby these days.
Sometimes I switch off the sound to to study movement without the bias of the commentary or the crowd.

If one or two of those passes went to hand in the first half/early second half we could have been out of sight.
These are not bad players.
These are not players reneging on effort or application.
Every single one of them is someone’s son, doing the best job they can in the circumstances.
I sometimes wonder about the sanctimonious claptrap this board offers up, whilst trying to differentiate itself from the Drunken Wasps site.
Be kind to each other, but it’s okay to be venomous to the players and coaching staff?

I can understand massive frustration midway through a season, but the histrionics two games in…reflect more on the posters than it does on the squad.

For my tuppence, the players are simply trying too hard.
If I was Head Coach, I would be drilling into them “the long game”.
Patience, Possession, and Field Territory.
Look after the ball like it was a lump of gold.
As the season progresses, get more expansive…but for the first 5 games…never let that ball leave your hands unless it’s 95% guaranteed it’s going to another Wasp player.

At the moment, it seems the guys, especially our forwards, are too short-termism.
Compounding one mistake on top of another. Desperately trying to claw back momentum.
Silly individual errors by trying too hard.
It’s a simple fix…and their undoubted effort just needs reframing.
But yes, it’s a coaching issue that needs resolving.

But for people who never even watched the match to be highly critical and call for significant changes, I find that a little embarrassing.
We really weren’t that far off a great performance today.
A drop and a spill…and then we compounded mistake after mistake, trying to make up for it.
Play the long game. Have patience and self belief as a full squad of players.
Believe in one another to know you’ll get back in the game.

And of course, shore up the scrum.
Without that platform, everything else becomes that much harder.

Allez.

[Andywasp50]

Andy, if we can cut out the handling errors and not drop the ball so often, then phases and sustained pressure will happen.

+1

Isn't that just saying that if we played better we'd do better?

I’ve put on the other post match thread, in my experience bad sides are all about ‘could have, should have, ifs and buts (and a healthy dose of ‘next game it will be better…’)’. It’s what you do that counts whilst what you could have done counts for little, as the table proves. Good sides find a way to win and bad sides find a way to lose. We get the important stuff wrong in our approach play and defence at the critical times which is very much definitive of a top GP side versus a side battling at the bottom.

It says a lot about us when Bristol feel they can come to the CBS and rest players but still come away with something. The fact they could do this and we didn’t even get a LBP is abysmal. Watching Quins v Sarries is like watching a different league - intensity, physicality, speed, organisation. They are on a different level.

[wasps]

Hopwood,


You're probably right.
Keep hold of the ball, protect it at all costs and we'll probably do well


However based on a number of recent seasons, that doesn't appear to be the philosophy of Wasps when attacking.
Even when Lee was attack/backs coach under Dai, we seemed to prioritise keeping the ball the alive over everything else.


At times that balance did change, but we've been back at trying to keep the game open and fast for quite a while now.


At times, that has been a strength of ours but currently it's not, yet it seems that it's still part of the philosophy.




The catch 22 is that most of us want Wasps to play open, fast, attacking rugby, but when yesterday happens we want us to tighten up.
It may be a balance thing, but Lee needs to find that balance fast

[Shugs]

Does anybody know how many passes we made in that game v the average in the Premiership?

We made 201 passes.

Average this week was 128 passes.

We also made 164 carries and ran 687 metres. Second half we had 83% territory and 63% possession. Sadly, all pointless as we couldn't catch the ball.

Thanks Jac. Some useful stats to provide a bit of balance.
I watched the whole game on a big TV with no distractions.
I’m also not someone who gets overlying emotional about rugby these days.
Sometimes I switch off the sound to to study movement without the bias of the commentary or the crowd.

If one or two of those passes went to hand in the first half/early second half we could have been out of sight.
These are not bad players.
These are not players reneging on effort or application.
Every single one of them is someone’s son, doing the best job they can in the circumstances.
I sometimes wonder about the sanctimonious claptrap this board offers up, whilst trying to differentiate itself from the Drunken Wasps site.
Be kind to each other, but it’s okay to be venomous to the players and coaching staff?

I can understand massive frustration midway through a season, but the histrionics two games in…reflect more on the posters than it does on the squad.

For my tuppence, the players are simply trying too hard.
If I was Head Coach, I would be drilling into them “the long game”.
Patience, Possession, and Field Territory.
Look after the ball like it was a lump of gold.
As the season progresses, get more expansive…but for the first 5 games…never let that ball leave your hands unless it’s 95% guaranteed it’s going to another Wasp player.

At the moment, it seems the guys, especially our forwards, are too short-termism.
Compounding one mistake on top of another. Desperately trying to claw back momentum.
Silly individual errors by trying too hard.
It’s a simple fix…and their undoubted effort just needs reframing.
But yes, it’s a coaching issue that needs resolving.

But for people who never even watched the match to be highly critical and call for significant changes, I find that a little embarrassing.
We really weren’t that far off a great performance today.
A drop and a spill…and then we compounded mistake after mistake, trying to make up for it.
Play the long game. Have patience and self belief as a full squad of players.
Believe in one another to know you’ll get back in the game.

And of course, shore up the scrum.
Without that platform, everything else becomes that much harder.

Allez.

Problem is it’s not two games in. It’s two years in with the same outcomes. You may call it sanctimonious claptrap. I just think saying we were really very poor is an accurate calling of the game (which I was at). We are a professional sports team - we really can’t carry on saying if that pass had been caught etc etc we’d have been out of sight. The fact is we need to start catching those passes and winning games.