Always a Wasp

About to crush Australia, which leaves Eddie as a broken reed.

My computations for the QF are notoriously inaccurate; will England play Fiji?

[I have tickets for England QF and Fiji v Georgia.]

E Jones cannot continue after this, surely?

35 mins and not a good situation for England.

Flament looks a fantastic player both in defence and attack, with 2-3 interventions a game that make a differnece.

I cannot help thinking that Tom Willis would be more effective than Dombrandt, who looks underpowered and lacking in direction.

Pasted:

Joe Launchbury: I’m very optimistic Wasps can be saved from administration
Captain says team ‘fully trust’ club’s hierarchy
new
Will Kelleher, Deputy Rugby Correspondent
Sunday September 25 2022, 5.00pm BST, The Times
Launchbury says the club still has a huge amount to offer

The Wasps captain Joe Launchbury vowed that the club will fight on despite the looming threat of administration but the players trust their owners to steer the club clear of danger.

Launchbury, 31, was at Wasps when they last were threatened with financial meltdown, in 2012. Now the on-field leader, he is finding this uncertainty stressful, but wants it to galvanise the club.

“It’s unsettling isn’t it?” he said after beating Bath 39-31 on Friday night.

“Especially when the word gets chucked around, which I don’t think the club wants chucked around – administration. No one wants to hear that.

“If I’m brutally honest, I probably care too much about the club. It means an awful lot to me, it’s been home for a long, long time. I want the best for it and all its employees. The game was a challenge to get right for, but I’m really proud of the boys.”

The club gave notice of appointing administrators last Wednesday, and on Thursday owner Derek Richardson, chief executive Stephen Vaughan and chief operating officer Chris Holland met with players and staff to explain Wasps’ plight.

“We fully trust them,” said Launchbury. “The people at the top are very clear about the fact that they want to be part of the club and to find solutions to this. For us as players, hearing [from them] on Thursday was music to our ears and now we’ll leave that to them.

Launchbury has full trust in those who run the club, despite its uncertain future

“We’re not going to pretend that we’re [players] going to solve any issues in that area. All we can try and do is win rugby games.

“Until I’m told otherwise I’m very optimistic. Maybe I’m a little bit biased, but this club has a huge amount to offer, a huge amount of things going for ourselves. I believe the future can be really bright for this club.”


The head coach Lee Blackett said he will look to protect Launchbury in this situation, worried he will burn out trying to lead the club out of crisis.

“You have got to be really wary,” said Blackett. “He is someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, he loves the club, he does so much.

Blackett wants to protect his captain from burning out due to the stress about the club’s future

“I don’t want him to take too much. We have to look after Joe as well because he is so passionate about the place that this could get on top of him.

“He has got a massive year for us, he leads by example by what he does on the field. Hopefully, he has got a World Cup at the end of it, and the last thing we want to do is put too much on his shoulders.

“He is one hell of a captain, he is a special individual.”

Very interestring game, with some great tries.
NZ back row emphatically improved over last week.

I think holding back Marx/Koch etc backfired today, as evidenced by Marx coming on at c 30 mins, and Koch destroying the NZ scrum when he arrived late in the game.

Am may be the best player on the planet currently. Savea was pretty amazing.

How anyone can consider Pollard an inadequate replacement for Ford at Tigers - well, let's see shall we. I think he is on 14 consecutive successful kicks apart from anything else.

No spoilers

An away win takes Castres to the top of the Top 14.

26 played, 17 won, 8 lost, 1 draw.  For 565,  Against 529. [points difference 36].

8 other teams have better points difference.
Very unusual stats for a table topping team.

I hope they win the competition.
What they achieve for a small town in France is amazing.

In the Times:

"John Barclay: Richard Cockerill made me dread training – he could drag England down
The new England forwards coach has only one gear, and that is aggressive shouting. His toxic approach lost its effectiveness over time, writes John Barclay

John Barclay, former Scotland captain
Thursday November 04 2021, 12.01am, The Times

When I read Owen Slot’s piece in The Times last Friday about what it’s like to work for Eddie Jones, my first thought was how things might develop now that Richard Cockerill is also involved with England. My experiences under the new England forwards coach lead me to conclude that he is cut from a very similar cloth to the Jones portrayed in the article.

At Edinburgh, Cockerill, too, could be “brutal, rude, aggressive” in his dealings with players and staff. There is clearly potential for him and Jones to end up going at each other. I do believe, however, that Cockerill could function well in a Test set-up, where the onus is on delivering extreme detail to very capable players in a concentrated burst.

Over a short period, his methods can be invigorating and sharpen you up. It’s when you are exposed to them for months and years at a time that they drain you and drag you down.

The eminent psychologist Robert Vallerand describes two types of passion: harmonious and obsessive. The former is collegiate and sustainable over time and therefore most often found in teams that repeat success; the latter is usually transactional and characterised by the “brutal” and “pressured”, with any benefits accrued attenuating and often reversing.

As an Edinburgh player, I would pull into Murrayfield each morning, park up, and dread the day that lay ahead. I wasn’t alone. Cockerill, 50, has no gears — his default, and only, approach is to rant and rave every day. He is obsessive. He hopes the players have the mental capacity and resilience to return stronger.


That style had a place, but to me it is a relic. Players are more reflective now; there are enough metrics to quantify their own performance and plenty of coaching opportunities to realise the necessary change.

They do not need a bad cop asking needlessly pointed questions and heaping on pressure; most good players, with the proper coaching, can ask those questions of themselves. They know when they’ve been good, they know when they’ve been bad and they know where they need to improve: if they don’t, they’re probably not right for your team.

I am not advocating some new age “safe place” approach to professional rugby training, but the hairdryer treatment is most impactful when it’s unexpected. When Mike Blair or Gregor Townsend — the present coaches of Edinburgh and Scotland, who are generally softly spoken — read the riot act, you take note. When coaches who scarcely lose their cool start shouting, it’s powerful. Sometimes you do need a bit of a rocket, but when the behaviour is normalised, it loses its desired effect and becomes toxic very soon after. Moreover, I have found that it is much more effective if the upbraiding comes from within the playing group. Good coaches know this.

Cockerill’s role as bad cop was invigorating in the short term but later dragged players down
Cockerill’s role as bad cop was invigorating in the short term but later dragged players down
REX FEATURES
I’m all for a hard environment, an uncomfortable environment where you train like Spartans — spending time under controlled pressure builds resilience and fosters an ability to solve problems. But there must also be a release from pressure, an ability to relax and connect emotionally with team-mates. In that kind of set-up, where there is a bit of trust and players are treated like adults, players will figure out themselves what is required and execute it.


How you are treated off the pitch will inevitably be reflected in how you play on it. If the environment is so suffocating and autocratic that players don’t feel empowered to make decisions, you end up thinking: “What will he want me to do?” rather than, “What should we do?” Sometimes it’s the same thing, but often it’s not. If you have purposefully eroded people’s ability to make decisions, you can’t expect them to think on their feet in the heat of battle.

To me this is best demonstrated by England last year. There is no doubt that Jones, 61, is a great coach — he has made huge improvements with England — but there’s a reason why most teams are now going with a more collaborative approach: you need only look as far as Harlequins’ revival for proof.

As a player, all you want to do is play for your club or country. With this kind of coach, direct questioning can lead to dire consequences, as I discovered with Scott Johnson, the Australian who coached Scotland from 2012 to 2014.

The morning after Scotland had lost 28-0 to South Africa in November 2013, he called me at 7am asking me to come down to the team room. All the coaching staff were sitting in a circle, and he made me sit in the middle while he showed clips of my errors from the previous evening’s match. I had recently had shoulder surgery but had played six games for Scarlets. There was absolutely no doubt I was good to go, but Johnson made a big show of saying: “I’m giving you this opportunity to admit you weren’t fit to play.”

I replied by asking if everyone else was also being brought down to justify their performance, we got into an argument and he never picked me for Scotland again. I didn’t win another cap for two years, by which time Vern Cotter was in charge.

I would dread coming to training under Johnson. It was the worst possible environment in terms of getting the best out of people; very similar to what Dylan Hartley describes in his book when discussing life under Jones.

It is in stark contrast to the culture that Townsend has built with Scotland, where the players feel like the coaches are only interested in helping them become the best version of themselves. There is full and unapologetic recognition that the best way of improving the collective is to invest in the individuals within it.

It is no surprise that the present Scotland squad is demonstrably the most successful of the professional era and much more besides. They are also very happy in their work — and the two are inextricably linked in team environments."

Times today:

There have been notable moves despite pandemic-restricted spending, none more so than the arrival of the 29-year-old All Black at Wasps

Stuart Barnes


Pummelled by the pandemic, the English club game enters the new season with the boardrooms of the 13 top-flight clubs predominantly in survival mode. What cash remains in the coffers was certainly not flashed. An at times anonymous transfer market has been far from business as usual.

Tentative off the field, the competition enters 2021-22 on the most optimistic imaginable note. Restricted finances gave way to borderless ambition as Harlequins spearheaded the finest finale in the history of the Premiership. Bristol, Exeter and Sale all played their part in thrilling play-off matches.

The semi-finals and final were superb games. The increased ambition that acted as a glaring counterpoint to the conservatism of the national team was backed up with an accuracy often lacking in the earlier part of the campaign.

Not one club has attempted to accentuate the feel-good factor with a mass of high-profile signings. No one is buying success with an open chequebook. Each signing must be justified in these tightened times. The most exciting bit of business could be the most significant.

The best signing
After a disappointing season Wasps have found the answer to more than a few of the problems that dogged their campaign. His name is Vaea Fifita, a 29-year-old, capped 11 times by New Zealand, who played a prominent role in the Hurricanes Super Rugby team as a back-row forward able to play lock.

Anyone who remembers the try he scored against Argentina three years ago will be aware of his speed, strength and dynamism. There is more than a little of Bristol’s Steven Luatua to the way he plays. As lithe as the Bears talisman, he possesses infinitely more pace. He also has an incredible spring to his leaping. There were times when Wasps struggled at the lineout. With Wasps dependent on quick ball, it was no wonder Jacob Umaga and the back line stuttered.

Wasps have a plethora of back-five options. Many of them are injury prone, a few — when fit — could be unavailable through international duty. A back row with the graft of another former Hurricane, Brad Shields, balanced by the blistering brilliance and big hitting of the Tongan-born Fifita is set to reignite Wasps. No newcomer will bring more thrills to the Premiership.