Always a Wasp

Quote from: Neils on March 24, 2024, 08:38:36 AM

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RugbyInsideLine
@RugbyInsideLine
🐝 WASPS XV

1) Opoku-Fordjour 🦈
2) Oghre 🐻
3) Koch 🇿🇦🦈
4) Launchbury 🃏
5) Fisilau ❌
6) T. Willis 💫
7) J. Willis 🚽🚽
Barbeary 🛁
9) Porter 🃏
10) Atkinson 🍒
11) Feyi-Waboso ❌
12) Hartley 💫
13) Spink 🦢
14) Odogwu 🇮🇹
15) Crossdale 🟡🔴

What could have been?

16) Frost
17) West
18) Alo
19) Stooke
20) Shields
21) Robson
22) Umaga
23) Kibirige

And Elliot Millar-Mills has been capped by Scotland since Wasps folded!

There's an interesting article in the Telegraph about rugby brand recognition, particularly regarding young people.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2024/03/04/northampton-change-crest-target-younger-fans/

Northampton Saints, currently top of the Premiership, are aiming to create a new badge for next season because very few people recognise it and even their own supporters cannot draw it from memory.

This got me thinking about other teams' brands. I recon if you showed a typical sample of people all the Premiership and Championship club badges (without give away wording) they would struggle to identify most of them, even if they were told they were rugby clubs.

If the clubs that went bust were included as well I am sure that the Wasps badge would be one of the most widely recognised, even today.

That sort of convinces me that the argument about the Wasps brand is actually cogent and relevant to growing the game, regardless of what the Championship clubs, or others, think.

3 ex Wasps Academy players, at the time we went bust, featured in this article about new England prospects, although only 2 are actually acknowledged as such.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/index.html

What a team we could have built, if only!

Nice to see Fisilau drive Dan Frost over the line for Exeter's first try. Two ex Wasps in tandem.

The impressive young Sale tight head, Asher Opoku-Fordjour who looked very good when he came on in last nights game is a Wasps Academy & Kenilworth RFC product.

He out did Marler in a scrum and was praised by him afterwards. I thought Asher looked a real prospect and he's only 19.

I'm convinced that the logical location for a new stadium is Bicester on the Chiltern Line. It has 2 stations. Bicester North is 1 fast stop from High Wycombe, 2 from London Marylebone and 2 from Leamington. Sudbury Hill is on the same line and it also links to Birmingham.  1 hour with 1 change  from Coventry too. Bicester Village is 3 short stops from Oxford. So ideally placed for all Wasps associated locations.

I think Sixways is future proof insurance for having a ground fit for the Prem. It will allow a separate entity to be created as Worcester Warriors, and the ground can be sold off to them when the new one is ready. Warriors and Wasps can share the ground and costs initially whist getting the respective teams into good shape.

Selection isn't the problem with England,  especially in the backs. It's their style and game plan that is lacking. They generate such slow ball it is impossible to create real momentum. That's why Alex Mitchell looks so bad currently. He can't  play his trademark quick and sniping game with the ball his pack deliver. Unless England can fix that it doesn't matter who you have in the backs.

I see England have picked the same bunch of forwards for the QF so are unlikely to generate much quicker ball than last week. Inevitability they'll be kicking and chasing for the whole match and hoping Fiji make mistakes in their own half. I know Wales do a lot of this too but at least they are a breakdown force that play off turnovers and have a huge defence. Unlike England.

I suspect with Fiji reverting to underdogs they will raise their game and blow England away at the breakdown. I doubt they'll make as many mistakes as England are hoping for either.

.. it was good to see Will Rowlands having another good game and taking on the captaincy.

Absolutely, and Worzle chatting with Alex King and Gats after the game too.