There is plenty of reason to be disappointed in Elliot Daly’s departure at the end of the season. He’s a superb player who we have nurtured from start to departure. A great servant and I like many thank him for his dedication and service.
However, we still have plenty of superb players to make a credible and dangerous starting XV with inbound signings.
It is when you start to look at the full match day 23, more-so in the backs that things start to look a little light.
We currently only have two wings and two fullbacks, with WLR going that leaves one dedicated full-back in Rob Miller. Ok so Marcus Watson can play full-back, but who then do we play on the other wing to Josh Bassett? Looking at ins and outs we have got a healthy look to our forwards, and even a bit of back up at Scrum Half and Fly Half.
Our centres are still proving themselves and with Fekitoa inbound we have a strong core to choose from, and adaptable players like Gopps who can play 10 or 12 (I think he’s superb at 12 with a decent 10 to play outside of!).
We know to date of the loss of three props, two wings, one No.8, one FB and a centre and have announced one centre and two props... So where do we go from here? In my mind it is very much these two positions (wing and centre) that we are lacking and where our recruitment needs filling, possibly even another Scrum Half. We've plenty of props, back rows who can play strongly at 8 and centres!
One question on alarm bells, we currently have the biggest pool of outgoing players in the premiership to date… a sign that things are bad at Wasps? Not really in my mind, just that we need to look at the inbound to regain the momentum we hit in the run up to the 2017 final!