Always a Wasp

Players who signed up for the Sarries scheme can't hide behind ignorance just because a perma-tanned grey haired rich bloke said it was all above board.. the players who said "ok" are complicit.

With respect thats utter rubbish. Remove assumption from your argument and remain on fact. Go test the theory, go to you employer tomorrow and ask them to open their books, including salaries of all your colleagues, because you want to calculate their operational costs versus the contract you have in place...see what they say.
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I am not aware of many businesses having salary caps.  Your putative comparison question is a figment of your imagination to support your view point.

It is amazing what you can learn if you ask your employer.  Try it sometime.

You're digging a hole for yourself.  The players knew, full stop.

The players are guilty too. They knowingly entered into contracts with Saracens. Let’s not pussy around. People who went to speakeasies were knowingly breaking the law but chose to do it. Same with the players. They need to bear responsibility and any costs.

I noted in an article in the Torygraph that it was ED signing that might have tipped things over the edge.

Fats, Marlowman, we are two games in. It may turn out that you're right and the wheels have come off. I'm not a hopeless optimist - I'm just prepared to give it more than 160 minutes of rugby before deciding. This is not last season or any other and the playing personnel is different. Initial signs haven't been great but we have quality players. That has to tell sooner or later.

Shrugs

It’s a continuation of the state we were in last season.

We have a “structural issue” that is not being addressed.

I would love things to turn around but look at the table two games in.

Bottom two are Tigers with no points and Wasps with one. Top two have 9 points each.  Tigers are known to have problems and we don’t?

We can’t even win a home game against the side promoted from the Championship. Furthermore our DOR watched a different game from the rest of us yesterday.

Do you think it is just bad luck that has influenced so many of the top coaches who were linked with joining us over the last 12 months or so?  Dream on guys. There is trouble at mill.

Quote from: Hymenoptera on October 27, 2019, 02:40:16 PM

The worrying part is we are pretty much at full strength. Teams around us have reinforcements to come in.

I'm not going to call out for Dai to go, the team need to front up, they are paid professionals. Having never questioned the coaching before I am now wondering why we are sooo bad...
To pretend all is ok in an attempt show how positive you are and anti DW is lost after 2 weeks of this dross i'm afraid...4-0!!!!! And we could have played for another 2 hours and we still wouldn't have scored, they will have scored another 4.

All is not well. But equally all is not lost. Whilst it's disappointing to lose it's not the end of the world. No reinforcements to come in? Minozzi, Young, Launchbury, Rowlands, Rieder, Vellacott, McIntyre, Searle and T Willis?

I’d love to have some of what you have been prescribed that gives you this upbeat vision of the world. 

Our NZ contingent are conspicuous in performing below their reputations and our expectations.

Which planet is Fekitoa on?  What he did to get the card was stupid and naive. He is not very quick, as Glaws exposed for two of their tries. Was he a good acquisition?

Shields, pity he is not in Japan. Not good enough.  No leadership.  When both of the Willis brothers back don’t expect to see him.

Sopoanga, place kicking aside, is not good enough.  Umanga is way better given how young and inexperienced her is.  Happier to live with him than with Lima.

Jury still out on Watson.  Very quick but prone to selfishness and errors.  Bring on our new Italian ASAP please.

With Dan possibly out for some time I have zero idea who in the backs will stand up and take control unless Gops is truly fit and can come back.

Take off rose tinted spectacles. We, with a couple of exceptions  were poor.

Too many errors, no leadership and were not really at the races.

Not Nots thumped today so that is a fair indicator of where we  are.

What was Robson doing on the pitch for so long?  Not only were we thumped but we might have lost him for some time.

Gaskell take a bow. 👏👏👏

Worst signing of the season
Lima Sopoaga (Wasps). If Gloucester signing Danny Cipriani is everyone’s player of the season, the worst piece of business now appears to have been done at Wasps, where they let him go. They put judgment on the line by bringing in Sopoaga instead. To be fair, no one said at the time that this was anything other than an outstanding recruit. Maybe next season it will be, but he needs renewed confidence and a lot of work on his defence.

 FROM TODAYS TORYGRAPH

 Mick Cleary, rugby union correspondent, at the ricoh arena
19 MAY 2019 • 12:16PM

There was no attempt to massage the truth, no suggestion that the league table may have lied, no top-spin, just an acknowledgment that both teams had got their just desserts from the season - Wasps missing out on Champions Cup qualification, Harlequins on the play-offs.

Wasps have had a ‘dark cloud’ hanging over them since October, according to director of rugby Dai Young; a gathering storm of money issues and player departures.

Quins, meanwhile, in taking only seven points from their last seven Premiership matches, would have been guilty of flattering to deceive if they had made the semi-finals. It would have done them no good either to have clutched at the straw that was James Lang’s agonisingly-close missed kick from 52 metres in the dying seconds. Harlequins knew that and, to their credit, they didn’t duck the starkness of the outcome. 

Such honesty will stand them both in good stead. The best four teams have made the play-offs, albeit Exeter Chiefs and Saracens look to be in a class of their own. It will take some about-turn in recent form to topple the Premiership’s pre-eminent duo of the last five seasons.

Wasps had their brief flirtation with putative glory in 2017 only to be trumped by Exeter in extra time. They know better than most just what it takes to prosper at the top having been there themselves more than a decade ago. Exeter and Saracens are their modern-day equivalents, with their well-stocked squads giving them the ability to rotate and cover for international absences, allied to hard-headed play out on the field when the pressure comes on. They lead the way and the others are playing a distant catch-up.

Young admits that it will take Wasps some time to get back to such status, acknowledging that with the departure of stalwarts such as Gloucester-bound scrum-half Joe Simpson and centre Elliot Daly - whose signing for Saracens earlier in the year prompted such howls of anguish from the Wasps’ faithful - he will have to rebuild another squad for a new era. Simpson’s two tries against Quins (to add to one from wing Josh Bassett) show how much he will be missed. The reconstruction job is far from straightforward. 

“Maybe this is the kick in the nuts the club needs because we haven’t been good enough,” said Young. “This squad has run its course. It’s time to press the reset button. We need to be different because things haven’t worked and our second team hasn’t been good enough. My job is to build it back up again.”


As Saracens have shown, that process has to be in constant flow. For all the mud thrown the way of the European champions, with an ongoing investigation into their salary-cap dealings, the north London club have shown the rest of the game the vital importance of nurturing talent from within. Wasps used to be like that. There is a sense that they will find it harder to regroup this time around. They lack leaders and do not appear to have the stability that others do. It will take a mighty effort from the stout-hearted Young.

The Premiership has been more fiercely contested than ever. The margins between success and (relative) failure are fine with only five points separating fourth and ninth. One bonus-point win and a wholly different complexion is put on the season.


Harlequins finished on the same points as Northampton above them and Bath below, yet much as they merit praise for the manner in which they have rallied from last season’s trough of despair, which finished with the sacking of John Kingston and the arrival of Gustard, there is still much to do.

Even though Gustard might eventually take satisfaction from his team’s fifth-place finish, he realises that the manner in which their Premiership campaign tailed off, slipping from a position eight points ahead of Gloucester (who ended up a comfortable third) means that he can assume little for next season.

There is more steel and grit about Harlequins and even if the likes of centre Joe Marchant - surely a bolter for Eddie Jones’ World Cup squad - caught the eye here with his well-taken try, with Danny Care and Elia Elia also on the scoresheet, there needs to be greater potency in the ranks. Quins are on the right path, although they cannot afford to rest on laurels.

“Hard work is what underpins success as I know from my time at Saracens,” said Gustard. “We all have to improve. My bar is not set at finishing fifth.”

The chasing pack still has much ground to make up on Exeter and Saracens.