Always a Wasp

Morning folks!

I'm up very late for me, after my now failing phone decides to change the time. Lucky I work from home on Sundays, so not exactly late for work, but going to not finish until much later than planned!

Excited for this one, not hugely confident, but love the backline.  Let's keep the Fortress Ricoh record.

17 - 42

I'm thinking big!  But that 17 will be disappointing, since Wuss weren't doing well and we cost ourselves some points, nonetheless, our attack still looked sharp and set piece was reasonably solid.  Willis got 25 minutes from the bench since we were in control, and put in a great performance.

Now watch my predictions go completely wrong!

Lovely play for the first try. Smooth lineout, AJ and Hughes on the charge in the middle, AJ with the pop pass to Hughes, could have left it slightly later to draw defenders perhaps, but that's picky.

Good front foot ball, Cruse playing like a 10, takes it forwards keeps the forwards close and passes out the back to Cips, Myall cutting back in keeps the other forwards honest.  By taking it forwards so much, Sale's blitz now has to turn and start running backwards, and it's drawing in.  McGinty is totally drawn to Reider running a good line, Cips out the back to Gopps. McG manages to turn enough to allow Faf to try and get out, but they're already twisting and turning and on the backfoot.  Gaby with a great bust past Faf, then that sumptous offload.  We have 3 players running optimistic lines already, in Myall, Reider and Robson, and it pays off.  Robson with the easy run in, and Gopps with him if there was still any defence to deal with, plus the forwards and Cips coming in too.

For me, Cruse made that.  Plenty of work all round of course, I'm sure Cruse was getting calls, and Gaby's offload was filthy, but the simple fact that a forward is carrying, will always keep those first few defenders locked in place.  The pass he gave was perfect, and it started the chain of events that lead to the Sale blitz having to turn around and retreat.

2 lovely clearing box kicks from Robson, out of our own half must be a great psychological boost.

7.40m How that wasn't a penalty against Addison for a deliberate knock on, I don't know. One outstretched hand, no chance of catching it, knocks it down, and if you remove him from the equation, as you should for foul play, we have a 4 on 1 to break the line (not going to try and claim penalty try or yellow, but come on).

9.20m Damn, if Gaby had caught that, it's a try.  Robson with that wrap around works so well, I know we do it more. Gaby takes it, Bassett is wrapping around outside him, WLR outside him, and Wade on the wing.  Robson's speed had already caused Sales outside man to bite in, since Robson had got outside their defence.

11.20m, off the Sale scrum/free kick, Bassett doesn't trust Gaby on the inside, leads to a good Sale break, thankfully Haley got tunnel vision.  Great quick thinking from AJ, accepts the knock on isn't coming and wins the turnover. That was a knock on though!

13m. Lovely scrum half try from Robson. Not sure about Gaby's clearout, suspect the dark lines on Sale's shirt, and the sun in JPs eyes may have helped, but it does also show the usefulness of having a large centre to help with the ruck work.

16.40. Nice turnover by Cruse, could have gone against him, but would have been harsh. Reider draws and passes, lovely speed and step by Danny, and the timing of his last pass couldn't have been better.

18.40 Reider should get told off for passing that out the ruck, Robson had told him he's there.

21.08. Great offload back inside for the Sale try.  Linespeed in defence isn't natural for us yet, we'd do it, then forget for a few phases.  Hopefully it'll keep getting hammered in and improve.  Sale didn't seem to struggle to make yards to be honest.

22.30. I'd noted in Sale's friendly that De Clerk only box kicked once, and it wasn't great, often preferring to pass back for the kick, even in poor situations.  His box kick from just inside his own 22, to not even Sale's 10m line, shows why.  Good player, not sure about good scrum half.

22.50m Just to say, lineouts so far seem very good with Cruse.

24.18m Earlier Johnson knocks on what he should have taken, but we get the lineout (another good one), break the line in first phase with a great offload from Gaby, think Gopps could have given the pass, but I don't think it would have helped. Back down the line, and Bassett just fails to hold on.  One significant thing I've noticed is the sheer lack of phases when Wasps have the ball, yes we've dropped a few, but we get the ball in an acceptable area of the field, and we eat up the ground so quickly with breaks, that we score without many phases (or screw it up).

28.45m Lucky no yellow. AJ in the side of the ruck, Launch tackles a player whilst offside, another offence in the ruck.

32.47 3 for Robson, again, slicing the defence apart, great handling and running lines.  Just 2? rucks from the scrum to the try.

33m Robson seemed to have lost a bit of focus there.

37m Attack is going forwards, but the forwards look tired, so it's not quite as dynamic, same as when it switches to defence.

39m After Cruse had some more nice handling, he then passes an intercept, thankfully only to his opposite number!

40.50. Another great half break by Gaby, offloads to the ever supporting Robson, who's definitely added half a yard of pace, including the ability to sustain it.  How Wade wasn't considered to have been taken out, I don't know.  OK, McGuigan gets the ball with his right hand, but what exactly were his intentions with his left, if not to take out Wade?  It's only chance his right hand hits it anyway.

41.55. Gaby didn't realise Cips was giving it to him, shame.

43.10 Wade and Robson linking up wonderfully again.  Think he lost that before going over the line though. Lucky score.

44.35. Turnover, not sure, but it didn't look like we were in a good position to counter, but 36-14 up, a very pragmatic kick from Robson doesn't look like a bad option at all.

51.50 Bassett trusts his inside man, but Addison is just too fast for Gopperth. Thankfully he decides to pass it into touch. Robson has looked really puffed after making a break around the fringes, and later chasing back and getting scragged, may have got a boot too, comes off.  Fantastic performance, even with the chargedown.

53ish Good first box kick from Simpson, not a great angle, but got decent length.

53.22 Great run back and tackle from JdJ.

53.22 (I know, the clock has stopped on the recording) we're slow reacting to the quick tap.  Commentator says Hughes tried to kick the ball to stop the quick tap, but it was Reider.

53.22... Another one handed, no chance to catch, knock on, with Wade clear on the outside. Knock on only again apparently. Simpson with an overly long box kick, Sale recycle quickly, send it wide and we just don't have anyone to stop them as Bassett is relatively isolated. Sale don't muck up, and keep the ball alive with the support. JdJ almost gets hold of Faf.

62.08. A curry is grabbing Symons legs and not letting him go behind a ruck, finally lets go, gets up and gives Hughes a shove on his way back, Hughes grabs him and throws him to the ground as everyone else is chasing the kick.

62.25 Wade with one of those breaks that few could do, JdJ just can't keep hold.

67.40 That's the 3rd or 4th time Sale have gone through the 13/wing channel on Bassetts side.

68.24 Nice to see Hughes still getting back to his feet quite fast and looking to make hits.

69.21m Joe should have given that to Watson, the sale winger had turned his back, commit the other man and give it to Watson. Then since the 9 isn't available, it was slow ball.  Still, Hughes spots an opportunity through the ruck, and since he wasn't the one that formed the ruck, I'm fairly sure it was completely legal (Regarldless of what Diamond may think). Lovely offload and great balance from Rowlands to finish.

72.50 Love the optimism from Simpson on his run after we had good numbers.

73.10. Gaby has been standing at first receiver a lot since Cips has gone off, pretty good there too.

76m Cruse has been very active for the whole 80m, and he's done a hell of a lot of good, really impressive, very much in the TT mould. Unfortunately looked to be in discomfort after this hit.  Great turnover by Willis, but unfortunately we had given two pens already.  Lucky to not get a card perhaps, but we had a lot of time before that original warning in the first half.


Cruse going for the full 80 minutes, and really going, impressed.  Reider was very good, Willis had a great cameo, as did Rowlands.  Hughes kept working hard, and his base level jogging seems a bit faster now which is good.  Simpson was better than I thought, but can't see why you'd start him ahead of Robson in big games. Robson was devastating, great acceleration, great sustained pace, great reading of the game and decision making (one kick aside).  Attack definitely looked smoother with Cips, and the whole attacking structure changes when he goes off, Gaby and WLR both acted as first receiver a lot.  Gaby was fantastic, and will only get better as the understanding improves.  JdJ was better than I first thought, good taking the ball in the air at restarts, some very good tackles too.  Defence needs work. Linespeed was variable and the channel between Bassett and whoever happened to be in the 13 role was exploited too often.

Plenty of work ons, and we need to see if Sale's defence is just iffy, if their attack is actually good, or we need to improve a lot.  I think their attack was actually pretty good, so not too panicked about the scores against us, and our attack we know is incisive, not sure many teams would be stopping us easily, but perhaps better than some of their attempts.

So nice to get some Wasps rugby to watch again!

Don't know how many people still look here, but I assume given the season starts soon, sportsnetwork will start to demand articles, and soon enough our board will disappear.  So I thought I'd start a post here just to help everyone remember .

Excited about this season, going to be tougher still with more teams strengthening, but I'm hoping that the greater familiarity will see both our defence and attack improve.

I'm confident.  I know they'll bring more intensity than they did against Wuss, but Wuss were breaking them down in attack, and we could have done better, and finished the chances they had.  I'd also hope our scrum will hold up better than Wuss (if Wuss had had 1st choice props, I'd have been worried), I'd also expect us to do better than losing 30% of our own lineout, and stopping the tigers maul (stopping mauls has almost become a strength!).

Playoffs aren't easy to predict though, but I'm fairly hopeful!

None of the usual reasons of it being tough after work, not good for family etc.  Friday's are actually the best day in terms of me actually being able to watch the match with no interruptions.  I just don't like it when Wasps play!  No idea how it would be after a win (potentially similar), but after a loss like that in particular, my whole appetite for rugby has taken a battering, and I've much less enthusiasm to watch any more of the weekends fixtures!

Anyone else feel similarly deflated in terms of wanting to see other games?

Everybody should be able to follow this link, even if they don't have twitter.

JCW posted a sort of generic thank you to people sending me stuff (granola in this case), here's the tweet:

https://twitter.com/JC_Woolley/status/857258949741096962

Some of the comments from team mates aren't bad