Always a Wasp
General Category => Wasps Rugby Discussion => Topic started by: Vespula Vulgaris on December 05, 2021, 04:21:12 PM
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It's pretty clear that since the final, where we lost out after one wayward throw (whether you blame the thrower or the person who called it is irrelevant really) that we have nose dived.
We were winning constantly, as a squad we had rock-solid self-belief, and there wasn't a team in the GP who wanted to face us.
That feels like a long time ago now.
A lot of the squad is the same, and we've even added some quality in some places. The second row looks as good as it ever has, and our choice at hooker is almost embarrassing. we have the best 9 in the game, and a 10 who has shown he could be just as good if he can find the consistency.
So what is the problem? Why are we unable to win anymore?
I don't buy that this is simply down to injuries. It isn't that we are fighting hard, pushing teams, and just losing out despite moments of brilliance, we simply look defeated from the beginning.
As a team we are less than the sum of our parts.
Jacob has come in for a lot of stick recently (some from me) and it probably isn't entirely fair. The big frustration there is twofold. Firstly that he can be SO good that it is even more crushing when he isn't. And secondly because we really need someone to pull the strings and drag this team out of the slump it is in, and he is perfectly placed to do that at 10. Maybe it is asking too much of him, but again that is simply down to the fact people see he COULD be that person, yet somehow isn't managing to be. Much like the whole team to be fair.
So what is it?
Do you think it is nothing more than injuries, and things will magically improve when Joe, Jack, and Dobby are back?
Do you think it is a psychological issue? That we aren't winning because we aren't winning? That we are caught in the vicious cycle of losing and that until someone breaks that cycle this is where we will stay?
Do you think it is coaching? Perhaps the different coaches aren't pulling the same direction? Or perhaps Lee isn't finding the top job as easy as he initially thought?
Personally, I am incredibly frustrated by the current situation. When we were fighting to avoid relegation at Adam's Park during our darkest times it was pretty clear we didn't deserve to be much more successful. The quality in our squad was a lot more inconsistent than it is now. But now, we have the quality to win, and yet we don't.
Something has to change, but I worry that the removal of relegation, and Bath being so utterly terrible means there is no impetus for us to improve.
What do you think?
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Injuries and lack of rotation. Same we've seen several seasons before now.
Injuries-> no rotation-> tired players-> losing mentality-> poor rotation and further injuries
It sucks, but I think it's just like 2018/19. I don't think we'll achieve top 6. I think we need to crack down on how we've had so many injuries and how to stop it.
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Scrum - we probably have the weakest scrum in the premiership, we are giving away too many penalties rightly or wrongly at scrum time. Giving easy territory to our oppositions/ 5 meter line outs. Fingers crossed the new argie can at least give us some parity. If the penalties we are conceding go in our favour we would have been on the better side of the score on a number of games. It just takes the momentum out of our game.
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Generally speaking, the more minutes in to the game you go, the less influence the coaches have and the more influence the on pitch leadership and the game manager (usually either the 10 or 12) have.
At the start of the game, usually for the first 20 minutes or so, the team is following the coaching of that week and the pre-match instructions. That will be less so for the second half, maybe the first 5 minutes, and also a 10 minute block around 55-65 minutes when the replacements mainly come on.
Go back and re-score our matches into two blocks:
0-20 plus 40-45, plus 55-65
vs
20-40 plus 45-55, plus 65-80
Then you have the answer to your question.
Then go back and see what was different at the end of Lee's first season.
Well, you have already guessed it haven't you? No need to get the calculators out.
Our coaches are dictatorial to a bunch of players for whom that simply will not work. Are all the coaches like this? Probably not, but the key ones probably are.
Coaches can be enabling, or not, to creative people. Ours clearly are not.
I think Lee is not like that, but he needs to take a step back and up, and look over the shoulders of, and listen to what, the various coaches are saying and doing.
I had a number of different coaches when I played as a teen. Some were absolute bastards for whom you would do nothing and never go the extra mile. Some were incredibly supporting and creative. In this modern age of HR idiocy, we always want large businesses to employ people who have the right qualifications. Which is pure bunkum.
We need to lose a few coaches, because, much as I like to think people can change, they generally do not (and life is just too short to wait to find out).
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I wish I could give you an easy answer, VV. However, IMO, there is no one problem but several. Firstly, nobody can deny the effect that the appalling injury list has had on the team. As Lee alluded to, it's the severity and consequent length and uncertainty of the recovery that compounds the issue. I also believe that several of our injured players have been talismans to the rest of the squad: Joe, Jack, Alfie and Dobby to name a few. With them all out at the same time, it must be incredibly demoralising for the younger players who have chosen to make their careers in professional rugby. If it can happen to them, what chances do I have? So I do think the type of injuries are a very big problem. So the problem is also psychological. Is it any wonder, we have looked really disjointed as a team - particularly in the first half?
I believe that the injuries to our centres, and Ryan Mills in particular, has had a dreadful effect on our ability to put together a really solid back line. This has a consequent knock on to the wingers and FB. The coaching will also be disrupted by the uncertainty of injured players returning. I am getting worried about Jack's recovery and return. I cannot see him being the same player as he was before his recent awful injury. To come back from one was great but to come back from a second.......I really don't know.
There is at least one major positive. We seem to have great team spirit despite all that I have written before. In the last two games we have clawed our way back in, scoring one more try than both Glos and Wuss, and lost both games by an aggregate of just 3 points. Two great come backs. We really ought to have won both games. We certainly could have. But it wasn't for lack of trying. Everybody gives their absolute all. On the day, we are capable of beating any other team in the league.
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Scrum - we probably have the weakest scrum in the premiership, we are giving away too many penalties rightly or wrongly at scrum time. Giving easy territory to our oppositions/ 5 meter line outs. Fingers crossed the new argie can at least give us some parity. If the penalties we are conceding go in our favour we would have been on the better side of the score on a number of games. It just takes the momentum out of our game.
Please don't refer to him as an Argie.
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For me there are three main things. 1) Scrum. We concede far too many scrum penalties and even when we don’t we’re regularly clawing it out of a bit of a mess. That has cost us countless metres of territory and you have to work incredibly hard to get back to where you started. 2) The 1% things. Premiership games are normally fine margin events. Basic things like restarts (both ways), a bit of savvy game management and silly penalties we just need an extra 1-2% in. 3) You can’t get away from it. Injuries. Our squad is as good as I can remember for a long time. But if you take Launchbury, Robson, Willis, Mills, Odogwu, Barbeary, Fekitoa, Harris, Gaskell out of any squad it has to have an impact - not least that those taking the field may not be 100% fit.
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Our playing structures on the pitch are leaving a lot to be desired at times.
It looks as though there is no 'general' out there. Brad is a warrior but he is not the orchestrator of our attack.
We do not play much 'heads up' rugby. Players seem 'lost' when having to make decisions.
There is no excuse for sub standard tackling - this a basic requirement for any rugby player, let alone professional rugby players. At school we were well drilled in the requisite tackling skills.
Agree with VV - maybe the coaches need to take along hard look at themselves. Are they being too prescriptive? Indeed, when Lee tore up the script post Dai, every player was enjoying the freedom AND boy, did it produce results.
Injuries now seem to be a recurring theme. Some serious questions have to be asked. Do we recruit some players who 'break' too easily? Ryan Mills seems stand out as the biggest question mark. I'm sure that the physios do analyse the causes of of injuries and feed back to the coaches. I would like to think that before signing a player, the club had looked at videos of potential recruits over at least a season and noted their injury record and hence availablity.
And finally, our Talismen. We have Alfie back. Get Joe, Jack, Paolo, Malakai and Dobby in the team and we suddenly will look altogether a different proposition.
Front row squad needs bolstering. Hopefully that will improve in the next recruitment round.
We will get better. This season is going to be a tough one. Miracles do happen amd it might come together sooner than we think.
Wasps are a frustrating team to watch. A lot of might have been results this season.
I am hopeful that next season will see us on he way back up the table.
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Injuries are a major problem, it’s not just about missing better quality players on match day, it also effects how we train. We just can’t train fully because we don’t have enough players to train hard which will give us that extra 1/2% that’s needed.
We have been a bit poor recently with our recruitment, players who are injury prone. Mills is just a joke at the moment, he needs to start playing soon or we must look at a replacement. 12 is a massive problem for us that needs sorting also loose head. If we had quality there I would think we would be difficult to beat.
10 is hard, Jacob is better with Rob but he drops massively but who wouldn’t with a poor 12 and 9.
Get the injuries back we can train better and see the results. If we don’t see a change then the coaching set up is the problem
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"Injuries now seem to be a recurring theme. Some serious questions have to be asked. Do we recruit some players who 'break' too easily? Ryan Mills seems stand out as the biggest question mark. I'm sure that the physios do analyse the causes of of injuries and feed back to the coaches. I would like to think that before signing a player, the club had looked at videos of potential recruits over at least a season and noted their injury record and hence availablity."
Do we have the best surgeons fixing those that need surgery?
No question that Andy Williams is top notch for knee injuries. But look at the palaver over the foot injuries we have had.
Joe took more than 6 months to recover from his neck surgery.
IMO/ sport medicine/surgery is very hit and miss in the UK.
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Is it all to do with the injuries? Maybe not all but....................
Unavailable XV
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I think the problem is benchmarking the performances by the false dawn we had a couple of years ago - a number of cards fell very nicely for us.
Firstly there was a set up that had grown stale under Dai and both parties needed a change. The ‘new boss’ syndrome kicked in and players were given their heads for a few games and put a few wins together. Next was a long and enforced rest - no training, no games - whilst we went into Covid lockdown. The majority of players came back well rested, fresh and full of energy. Then came the rapid number of games meaning sides were putting out second teams, which seemed to fall nicely for us. At the same time it was Summer, the majority of pitches were dry and fast - ideally suited to our game. In the commentary today they said that the new Quins DoR reviewed their successful season last year and realised they hadn’t played a single game in the rain. When I think back to when Blackett took over I can only remember three games in the rain and we lost all of them - Tigers away, Sale at home and the final itself.
Injuries and leadership have played a big part this season - Launch, Willis, Robson, Cruse, West, Fekitoa are all key players and leaders. But I was worried because I thought we lost an awful lot of senior talent at the end of last season. No complaints that we are looking for cheaper options from the championship and bringing Academy players through, but we’ve lost a lot of grit with it, and one of our big problems over the last couple of seasons has been a drop off in physicality. We get bullied in the scrum and bullied around the park at times.
Umaga has all the ability and heart in the world, but the top two inches aren’t quite there and that’s often the difference between top level and the rest. When Robson is playing he does a bit of thinking for Umaga - bossing the breakdown, moving the backs around and getting the ball to him that extra second earlier, so it’s easier for him to execute. Porter does the opposite and I really hate to say it but don’t rate him as a Premiership 9 - aimless kicking, lack of vision, slow to the breakdown. Incidentally, have our late comebacks in the last two games coincided with Wolstenholme coming on? Not sure but I think he has better vision and speed of pass.
Cash flow is also a problem because we could have done with an additional proven top level Hooker and 12 because they are such important positions, and allowed some rotation. Some players just don’t cut the mustard - Watson for instance. How he starts at 15 over Minozzi I never know.
Then I wonder if Blackett has the right personality for a DoR and the players are buying in to him. He seems too nice a guy, too affable. I can’t see him delivering a rocket or tough love. You need someone who demands respect and also a little bit of fear too. My solution would be Mitchell as Head coach looking after defence, with Blackett as attack coach and then a forwards and scrum coach. Also a big review and potential clear out of the S&C set up to bring in fresh faces there - the injuries in the last couple of years must have more than bad luck in common.
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Then I wonder if Blackett has the right personality for a DoR and the players are buying in to him. He seems too nice a guy, too affable. I can’t see him delivering a rocket or tough love. You need someone who demands respect and also a little bit of fear too. My solution would be Mitchell as Head coach looking after defence, with Blackett as attack coach and then a forwards and scrum coach.
Mitch would be my choice as Head Coach/DoR. He's seen it all. He is a 'no nonsense' operator.
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Speaking as a tactical idiot what gets me is the number of missed tackles. Surely this is one of the elementary building blocks, one of the basic skills of the game.
As for the injuries, I would have hoped that the backroom staff would have analysed the whatsit out of them to see if there was anything at all in our training, conditioning and preparation that might have caused or exacerbated them.
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I think our style and approach to the game is over reliant on certain individuals.
We always play better when launchbury is on the pitch.
Stooke and Fifita have been very good, but Joe brings something else to us.
We focus on attacking quickly and clinically off turnover ball. Jack is crucial to us winning penalties and ball.. We then transition quickly to attack better than most teams
Similarly, although every team wants to break the gain line, our approach to the game seems to expect it.
With Fekitoa and more recently Odogwu and Barbeary we've had players who break tackles and keep making yards while offloading for support.
We typically look for parity in the forwards in the belief that our clinical attack will do the rest
Even when we've had great seasons we've not been a team to dominate and run over an opposition.
We've never been a team to control territory.
We need the key players in the squad to allow us to play to our strengths.
Every single one of those key players is injured and most have been for a long time
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The players who are injured are just to good not to be missed on match day and training.
I’m really concerned about Jack if he can make it back. Swelling after 10 months is worrying, obviously I’m only guessing but someone with more knowledge maybe able to correct me.
We are not big spenders and therefore the drop off to 2nd choice is likely to be pretty big.
Also have to agree Porter is just not good enough and it effects Jacob who has a fine line of being good or poor
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Is there actually any recent comments from the Club about not paying up to the (current) salary cap?
There were a few seasons where we were reportedly well under the cap. But wondering whether that's actually the case now that it's been reduced.
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Also isn’t next season only 1 marquee player, which surely must effect some teams
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Nice vid of Wusty's try made by Jacob's break and Alfie's support running.
I would also suggest that Zach's run infield back to the forwards to set up the breakdown was a thoughtful move.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1467790897278504964 (https://twitter.com/i/status/1467790897278504964)
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Is there actually any recent comments from the Club about not paying up to the (current) salary cap?
There were a few seasons where we were reportedly well under the cap. But wondering whether that's actually the case now that it's been reduced.
Last discussion I had with anyone senior was we are below but not too far below. That was about 6/7 weeks ago. I may have been told fibs of course.
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Also isn’t next season only 1 marquee player, which surely must effect some teams
I'm assuming Fekitoa and launchbury are the 2 marquee players currently.... Although it's hard to be sure.
That may be where the rumours of Fekitoa leaving come from.
He's currently outside the cap but next season will need to be fitted inside it.... And is it a smaller cap next year?
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Of course there's no simple solution, if there were I'm sure the coaches, especially Mitch, would have spotted it but here's my two penn'orth FWIW:
Confidence, lack thereof. Losing is habit forming, just like winning, and teams that lose matches in the way we have soon start to lose confidence. Once that happens you get tense and try too hard and feel more tired at the end of a game. Knocks and niggles hurt more. You snatch at passes and try too hard and things go wrong.
Change of emphasis in training? At the end of the Covid season Lee made a comment that you have to earn the right to throw the ball around as we were doing and I paraphrase, but he said the Wasps way of we'll score more tries tan you was great but he wanted to put some more emphasis on defence. Have they been doing that and coaching out spontaneity?
My cure? Looking at what happened to Quins I don't propose sacking any of the coaching staff but perhaps they should just tell the players to get on with it for a few weeks and leave them to organise most of their own game plans?
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Short answer, for all the talk of Brookes being lazy etc., every club thinking of winning titles needs a quality front row and another quality front row. We have effectively not replaced our best scrummager. JTA upturning in terms of not conceding as many pens has unfortunately coincided with the LH that has been giving them away like sweeties. We are a long way from where we need to be.
Our signings in the second row have turned a weakness into a strength. Our back row is top, top class with options on the bench that change matches. Our front row is weaker than it was, due to the props, and it was not stellar to start.
Guys like Kiberige, Bassett, Watson, Minozzi are ok to very good players but good players plus a ten who blows very hot and cold and a rookie 9 plus zero confidence as a whole won't win. Stick Christian Wade into our team and we score more tries because he creates holes just by being there, a bit like Worcester did with DVdM. We don't have anyone like that now. Every week we play a team and I look at their back three and am more scared than I would be with ours more often than not. Odogwu might change that- if he is not a centre.
It is all confidence and fine margins, scoring 4 tries every game is a good habit, but we are where we are.
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Having watched the whole game back, I'd say apart from the considerable prop issues the main problem is a few players (Watson, Kibberige and Porter in this game) have concentration dips and a tendency to switch off when things don't go as planned. Even Brad did this for the first Worcester try. We lacked overall intensity as a team. If everyone had played to the level shown by Dan Frost, Tom Willis, Josh and Alfie we would have been fine.
I thought Jacob played quite well. He can make errors and often tries too hard afterwards but in this game he did a lot of good things including in defence. The missed touch kicks were excusable given the wind - Worcester missed some as well. The score from the kick that was run back was not his fault. The missed tackles, dog leg defence and complete absence of defenders when Umaga, Frost and Porter stopped Kitchener from scoring was. He does need to work on game management but so does the whole team.
At scrum half Porter is not commanding at all and looks awkward. Woosie was far better but did have a kick charged down, though given no protection.
Execution is not good enough at the moment but can be fixed in training but is more difficult when constantly switching players due to injury.
Hopefully we can improve enough to win and get a bit of confidence over the next few months and end the season well when key players return. For me I'd like to see a step up from a few more players so we have real depth in future.
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To start with the positive, we have been close to winning our last two Premiership games. So much improved with some injured players coming back. That should, fingers crossed by all of us, get better in the next few weeks.
To criticise one of the contributions here - saying "Mills is a joke" is cruel and unnecessary. I assume you meant having him injured for so long - but the words are wrong. And he must be desperate to get back on the field and support Jacob.
Some comments here that our scrum has been weak - together with comments about how effective our second and back rows are, especially with two new second rows. We have suffered with so many injuries and also new players in the front row - plus a hooker with potential in Frost. The actual scrums need to be improved but having so many new players must be a challenge for players and coaches.
Someone wants Mitchell as DOR. Rather like football supporters who always want the manager sacked. Worth remembering that he was not that successful when he was our DOR some years ago. He may be in the right supporting position now.
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WW, Our scrum has been weak, it is not arguable- I am not sure if you are arguing on that, mind you, but the stats for pens conceded in the last month have us at the bottom end of the table, and Frost has said it is not up to scratch in interview. Most of the pens are on the LH for stepping and going round the corner, but is that just down to the LH, I don't know myself.
One of our new signings was Scholtz, I would like to know what has happened there as we have not seen him.
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When Westy is fully match fit our scrum will improve big time.
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Last season, Biyi Alo looked like he would be our replacement for Brookes.
His scrummaging was solid, and he was also capable of some rampaging runs in the loose. It was just stamina/match fitness that he needed to work on.
With JTA backing him up (although potentially starting) we had 2 good options at TH.
On the LH side, we should be fine with West and Harris.
Maybe not dominant, but they've previously shown they can at least get parity with most other front rows.
Of those 4 names, we've only started 1 game this season with any 2 of them.
I don't want to detract what the likes of Scholtz, Hislop or Reid may bring to Wasps, but if we're never able to start games with our best props then we're going to struggle at scrum time