Always a Wasp

I think we'll see a different player this year. The class is still there but the pressure, rotating door next to him and the newness to the league will have gone away. Looked sharp against Wuss. Hope he can just relax and play.

I find myself split on the Wade issue. Firstly I think he left in a far worse way than Daly. In contract, just after the start of the season, few other options. Had he simply gone at the end of the prior season I'd have had no issue at all. In terms of performance he was electric and should definitely have had more caps. His defence was on par with most wingers of his generation.

Watson's performance at 15 at the weekend and our increased wing options give us the option of easing Minozzi in. I'd be surprised if he's in the squad for Saturday although he does have the advantage of covering all back three positions so you never know!

Hope to see them both back soon. Once they are both fit our back row options are great. There was no update on Alex Rieder but he didn't feature on Saturday. Do we know if he is still fit?

How has it wrecked the tournament? The only game with anything serious riding on it hasn't been cancelled yet, and Japan would be worthy quarter finalists regardless.

How can that be right? How do we know France wouldn't have beaten England? We can't just say "Japan are worthy so it's ok" (and thankfully that game went ahead). I'm not saying anything could be done given the rarity of the storm but equally with all games not played it can't be argued that the course of the tournament hasn't been altered. Anyway - on we go to the quarters - let's see what happens there.

I'd definitely go with LS but it's nice to have BS back. In terms of the centres Booj replaced Fekitoa with JdJ moving out to 13. It was noticeable that first half we used Fekitoa as first receiver quite a lot. We appear to have two high quality 13's and a Gopperth sized hole at 12.

Just back. Chalk and cheese first half and second. Vailanu's carry early in the second half seemed to spark us into life. Positives - Vailanu (mainly second half), Watson and I thought during our defensive sets Shields was fantastic - he's a proper player. Sort of reinforced where I thought we were. Perfectly sound front three, seeking parity second row, embarrassment of riches back row, fingers crossed SH that Robson stays fit, OK at 10 between LS and BS (prefer LS slightly at the moment), seeking an answer at 12, good options at 13 and excellent options all across the back three. Was really encouraged second half and I think we could be in the happy position of having quite a few international standard players who are actually with us all year. Encouraging.

Really looking forward to seeing this and that is a strong squad. Our back row options are fantastic and it will be interesting to see how the centre combination goes. Nice to see Searle back and fingers crossed for no injuries.