I don’t know about others but I find it hard to be as objective as I’d like on the day of a game: there’s always a bit too much emotion that can cloud judgement and I’ll have only watched the game the once and may not have picked up on many things.
There seem to be a few different ideas floating around about what has happened so far this season and why we are not performing anything like the way we were only a few short weeks ago.
I partly agree with Nelly in how the freedom to express and play with fewer boundaries, the ‘chaos’ style was/is important to our ‘success’ (even if we didn’t actually win anything). But I have a couple of reservations about it. Firstly, it is important that a team has a style of play – a system – that means that players can drop in or out easily without causing major change or disruption to the team as a whole (see Chiefs for the most prominent and successful example in the GP). Just telling players to play their ‘natural game’ won’t work when there you have to deal with changes, particularly to play-makers. I think we were part of the way there, we did/do have a style and a system, it did/does encourage creativity and freedom but it is reliant on certain parts of our game and certain players and our missing key players is having a major impact on this – not just because they are good rugby players but because their style of play is so important to what we do well.
Ask anyone who’s taken an interest what has characterised Wasps since August and they’d probably say our intensity at the breakdown. Not necessarily just the jackal turnovers Willis has won, but just how hard we compete and hassle and force teams to commit players and slow their ball down. Launchbury and Rowlands in particular excel here. Will Rowlands loves getting stuck into a ruck and has been much better at controlling his discipline, then add Willis and Shields and from the backs, Fekitoa too. Off those players we had Shields for about 30 mins and Willis for a game (which we won). Ben Morris was good today but the last two games have seen the opposition have a much easier time at the breakdown. They’ve had quicker ball and therefore been able to run at a less structured defence. This isn’t an area we can just say – get better at disrupting the breakdown. It’s an art, because it’s so easy to get pinged, and for all his fantastic attributes, Alfie Barberry is not a natural backrow with the dark arts mastery of a Shields or Willis and we saw with a couple of seasons of Will Rowlands penalty magnetism that that level of disruption isn’t something Cardall or Gaskell can just pick up. Indeed, Gaskell tried a bit against Gloucester and was penalised repeatedly in the first half. This for me is the issue with our defence so far this season – and it hasn’t been bad, just not as good as it had been. Also, the loss of Fekitoa is important and I know that no team should be overly reliant on a player but he was the defensive lead and gave that intensity. We all saw the boost those big hits gave to the team and the surety of having him there. De Jong seemed to have been carrying a knock against Gloucester and Odogwu was good today, but it’s a new position for him.
In attack it’s similar. Robson was important to us as he combined quick ball with accuracy and a good kicking game. Vellacott was slow and Wolstenholme inaccurate – neither are bad players but neither is Robson. Robson’s kicking is a sometimes overlooked part of his game but it’s so key to his management and ability to change it up and relieve pressure etc and none of our other 9s have his ability. As an aside, I liked Porter when he came on today. At 10, Jacob had a stinker today. Not his first and won’t be his last but he does miss more touch-finders than he should and his ‘close to the line’ play-making won’t always work. What I think is key for these few matches is that he has had hardly any time with the team in training. I’m not going to attack Eddie Jones (who is doing what he needs to win games) but how much has Jacob been in training? It has been made clear that he is an important voice and a bit of a leader in training and team meetings and laying down what he wants. If he is not there in the week, it can be difficult to rehearse the set plays and first phase moves and just to get a feel for each other again. Both weeks he’s played, he’s come in from England training on the Wednesday/Thursday and then had a concussion in between. Also, without the back-five issues in the pack, ball hasn’t been as quick or clean and that makes a difference. The other issue with training is the amount of injuries. Obvioulsy we’re missing the internationals and Shields, Tom Willis, Mills but also Vailanu, Curran, Spink, Watson, Simonds, Miller who may not be in the 23 but provide a motivation and opposition in training – if there are only 25 or so people at training, the intensity may well be lower. Minor point but even little things build.
Of course confidence will be an issue. I don’t think, as I saw on one forum – either here or DW – that we are only playing at 20%, just that we are 5-10% below but that has an impact and when something doesn’t work, we maybe try too hard and force it the next time and that then also doesn’t work. Handling errors mount up and confidence drops. Lineouts are also an issue, Taylor’s throwing has been off but he’s had several different callers, plus Douglas doesn’t seem to be an option and missing the first line 2nd row and Shields won’t help. Teams are also wise to our strength in the scrum (see for example how Falcons got ball in and out as quick as possible and got Graham to break from the base as soon as the ball was in the 2nd row channel, not giving us a chance to push them back).
I don’t think we were as good as we were made out to be at the end of last season to be honest. We had some luck and we were high on confidence but we are no where near as bad as some people are making out at the moment. Form is a bit all over the place for most teams at the moment and I think there will be a lot of changes (except for Exeter at the top) over the next few months but I still expect us to be pushing for top 4 at the end of the year.
Always a Wasp
