Bristol v Wasps: Post Match Thoughts.

[Westy68]

I think that's a fair shout Hopwood. it does seem to be a problem and a lot of it is down to Jack and Joe coming back from long term injuries, when fit they are the best.

I also think 10 is a problem, it should be the driving force to manage the game but it looks like Charlie is waiting for someone else rather then taking control. Also I think Jacob has more than one mistake a game in him. How many seasons do we have to wait for Charlie or Jacob to be ready

[HDAWG]

How many seasons do we have to wait for Charlie or Jacob to be ready

Something not many people talk about, the shortcomings of only having two talented young 10s with no experience. Ideally you have one veteran and one inexperienced. Here we don't have a veteran to rely on anymore. And because we have 2 young tens, you can't just sign a reliable experienced 10 because then one will leave and become the next Beauden Barrett because of course they would.

Again, shortcomings of relying on 2 young fly halves. And alternatively not keeping Gopperth as a player-coach.

[Rossm]

Just my opinion but Jimmy's days at 10 were over by last season.

[CV2]

I’d like to isolate an area I believe Wasps are struggling in.

We have a lot of players returning from injury. And the fans, the players and the coaching staff are really happy to see some quality players return.
However, things have become very disjointed.

And one particular area I’ve noticed is the clear out.
It takes huge amounts of technique, energy and fitness to get it right, time after time.
And I don’t think our returning players have the necessary fitness skills yet. And quite a few of our backs are too lightweight to make any difference at the clear out too.
It’s a problem area for us.

There are certain players in most top sides who you would tell to not carry the ball and to just be prepared to clear out rucks to keep the ball speed up.
With quick ball, darting runs….and excellent clear out skills, Wasps can be lethal.
But recently, it’s not until teams become really tired in the last ten minutes, that Wasps are creating those holes.

Many times our attack broke down last night because our clear out technique was poor.
It just shows the level at which Shields and Young played at.
And it also reveals the lack of true rugby fitness from returning injuries Wasps players. Launchbury included.
They’re not up to speed yet (and probably the reason released by England).

Anyway…that would be my work-on for this week.
To function we need quick ball.
To do that, we need better fitness, strategy and technique in the clear out.

I agree with this but I also think our attack play doesn’t help the clear out.

At times our attack play looks erratic and a bit aimless, lots of one off runners running awaiting from support play and isolating themselves meaning support can’t get to them quick enough to clear out. A few times last night we had players running in to heavy traffic away from all the support and getting turned over.

Some of the better teams in the league have more controlled attacking plays with regular support to clear out the rucks, drawing the defence in and then attacking the wide channels.

We give teams a couple of tries lead then have to play a bit more fast and loose (when inevitably chasing games) but unfortunately don’t always seem to have the players to back this up.

Big two weeks to get this and other areas sorted.

[Westy68]

Just my opinion but Jimmy's days at 10 were over by last season.

I think it's been a while since Jimmy has been a good 10

[HDAWG]

Just my opinion but Jimmy's days at 10 were over by last season.

That is true, but I still think an experienced 10 to fall back on would be beneficial.

[Jac A]

I had a different match experience last night - watching on VK without any sound whatsoever. Was interesting to be able to watch the whole game without any interference or anyone else opinion or comments. I quite enjoyed it - well I may have done if we had played better.

First a couple of points on things I have seen mentioned on this and he match thread.
Kicking percentages - as has been pointed out before, Jacob has a better kick % this season and last compared to Jimmy and while not Neil Jenkins is certainly not a 50% kicker.
Turnovers - we are still the team with the most turnovers won this season - we may not have Youngs and Willis at their jackalling best but we have still managed to win plenty.

Personally I don't think 10 is our major issue. Looking at the last few games (particularly yesterday and Quins) it is the breakdown where it goes wrong. Set piece is fine but there are around 40 lineouts and maybe 10-15 scrums a game but around 250 tackles, many of which end up in a ruck - just by sheer volume these have a significant impact on the game and if you are off the boil here it is difficult to control the game.

I'll just add in here that this is in agreement with an awful lot of what hopwood says.

The last two games we have been too slow and too easily out muscled at the breakdown. The opposition backrows haven't been all that on paper - Wallace, White, Jefferies and Heenan are decent squad players, nothing more, but in both games they have spoilt our ball, slowed it down and turned it over. On our attacking rucks we have been late, poorly positioned and ineffective and this meant that the ball was not there to get away quickly. A big part of this is the forwards but part in Robson not being as quick to get there as he was previously, if he is a fraction slower, the opposition can hit the ruck again and destabilise it for a moment and gain a second or two more to ensure they are in position. Robson is also slower at getting the ball away form a 'clean' ruck that he was, I saw him stood hand on ball choosing an option far more than he used to (perception only I have no data on this). If you have a set defensive line in front of you it is hard for a 10 to be all that creative, it doesn't matter if you're Dan Carter, Carlos Spencer or Barry John it's difficult to be creative when the opposition are set and formed in front of you, hence we resorted to more runners off 9 to take contact and try to get quicker ball - rinse and repeat.

We might say this is down to Brad missing, and that is some of it, but it is about balancing the resources we have. We want Tom Willis and Barbeary to be carrying, they are more effective than anyone else - to be effective they should ideally not be hitting too many rucks as that will increase fatigue, low effectiveness and mean they are in a ruck rather than being options to carry the ball or run an effective dummy line. That means that we need to be far better organised in who is tasked to clear out and making sure they are in position to do that and not being carrying options. To see an example of how this works, consider Wales performance against Ireland and the against Scotland (Sam Larner has got some excellent stats on this if anyone is interested). Against Ireland, Wales used their better ball carriers to hit rucks and as a result their carry effusiveness was impaired and Wales had very little gain from their forwards. Against Scotland, props Thomas Francis and Wynn Jones hit a combined 48 rucks (while barely carrying), while ball carriers in Moriarty and Basham hit far fewer but carried more and far more effectivly - for more meters and more gainline success. We have used Alo and West to carry and it is nor as effective as you'd think, they made a combined 7m last night.

I appreciate there is a lot of waffle in their but my point is I think we need to really focus on ensuring quick ball from the breakdown and setting a gameplan to deliver that as other teams are seeing that if they kill us there we have no where to go. Speed did improve when Porter came on and he has looked far better than Robson for four games now, but he still had issues when the forwards didn't secure the breakdown effectively. It is easy to blame playmakers when our attack looks stale but it is difficult without the platform.

[Buttoi]

I had a different match experience last night - watching on VK without any sound whatsoever. Was interesting to be able to watch the whole game without any interference or anyone else opinion or comments. I quite enjoyed it - well I may have done if we had played better.

First a couple of points on things I have seen mentioned on this and he match thread.
Kicking percentages - as has been pointed out before, Jacob has a better kick % this season and last compared to Jimmy and while not Neil Jenkins is certainly not a 50% kicker.
Turnovers - we are still the team with the most turnovers won this season - we may not have Youngs and Willis at their jackalling best but we have still managed to win plenty.

Personally I don't think 10 is our major issue. Looking at the last few games (particularly yesterday and Quins) it is the breakdown where it goes wrong. Set piece is fine but there are around 40 lineouts and maybe 10-15 scrums a game but around 250 tackles, many of which end up in a ruck - just by sheer volume these have a significant impact on the game and if you are off the boil here it is difficult to control the game.

The last two games we have been too slow and too easily out muscled at the breakdown. The opposition backrows haven't been all that on paper - Wallace, White, Jefferies and Heenan are decent squad players, nothing more, but in both games they have spoilt our ball, slowed it down and turned it over. On our attacking rucks we have been late, poorly positioned and ineffective and this meant that the ball was not there to get away quickly. A big part of this is the forwards but part in Robson not being as quick to get there as he was previously, if he is a fraction slower, the opposition can hit the ruck again and destabilise it for a moment and gain a second or two more to ensure they are in position. Robson is also slower at getting the ball away form a 'clean' ruck that he was, I saw him stood hand on ball choosing an option far more than he used to (perception only I have no data on this). If you have a set defensive line in front of you it is hard for a 10 to be all that creative, it doesn't matter if you're Dan Carter, Carlos Spencer or Barry John it's difficult to be creative when the opposition are set and formed in front of you, hence we resorted to more runners off 9 to take contact and try to get quicker ball - rinse and repeat.

We might say this is down to Brad missing, and that is some of it, but it is about balancing the resources we have. We want Tom Willis and Barbeary to be carrying, they are more effective than anyone else - to be effective they should ideally not be hitting too many rucks as that will increase fatigue, low effectiveness and mean they are in a ruck rather than being options to carry the ball or run an effective dummy line. That means that we need to be far better organised in who is tasked to clear out and making sure they are in position to do that and not being carrying options. To see an example of how this works, consider Wales performance against Ireland and the against Scotland (Sam Larner has got some excellent stats on this if anyone is interested). Against Ireland, Wales used their better ball carriers to hit rucks and as a result their carry effusiveness was impaired and Wales had very little gain from their forwards. Against Scotland, props Thomas Francis and Wynn Jones hit a combined 48 rucks (while barely carrying), while ball carriers in Moriarty and Basham hit far fewer but carried more and far more effectivly - for more meters and more gainline success. We have used Alo and West to carry and it is nor as effective as you'd think, they made a combined 7m last night.

I appreciate there is a lot of waffle in their but my point is I think we need to really focus on ensuring quick ball from the breakdown and setting a gameplan to deliver that as other teams are seeing that if they kill us there we have no where to go. Speed did improve when Porter came on and he has looked far better than Robson for four games now, but he still had issues when the forwards didn't secure the breakdown effectively. It is easy to blame playmakers when our attack looks stale but it is difficult without the platform.

Very well articulated post about our ruck issues.
We need to be supporting and clearing out the attacking rucks better. Any promising attack we either were pinged for holding on or we attempted a offload that wouldn’t go to hand or put us on the back foot.

[Rossm]

The ruck has entirely changed since I was playing, so please bear with my question. Why actually hold on to the ball at the breakdown thus almost certainly conceding a damaging penalty? Why not simply give up the ball? Obviously this is not always practical depending on the field position. A lot of penalties occur when players become isolated. If the players following up know this is to be the intention then they will be in far better position to deal with the turnover which may only result in a clearance to touch with our throw in anyway.

[Jac A]

The ruck has entirely changed since I was playing, so please bear with my question. Why actually hold on to the ball at the breakdown thus almost certainly conceding a damaging penalty? Why not simply give up the ball? Obviously this is not always practical depending on the field position. A lot of penalties occur when players become isolated. If the players following up know this is to be the intention then they will be in far better position to deal with the turnover which may only result in a clearance to touch with our throw in anyway.

You don't want to let go completely when tackled as you want to present it back and also not have it loose come come out of the ruck prematurely. When someone is competing it can often be a split second when you are hoping that a clear out come in to remove them straight away plus jackallers will often try to pull the ball in towards you to make it seem like you are not releasing and it is almost impossible to free you arms. But in principle, yes - if its clear you not going to win it can be best to let them have it.

[Shugs]

Jac A - great post. I think as fans we need to avoid the “boom or bust” effect. A group of players can’t be world beaters one week and carpet beaters the next. Our issue in the last two games was at the breakdown. But against Munster for example we didn’t have enough carrying power. Equally we’ve been great in those areas against the likes of Toulouse and Leicester. So I think we’re a top 6 side with a realistic shot at top 4 if things go our way. If there is anything we can do to cut out the inconsistency it is to work on our discipline - that requires no talent - just brainpower.

[hookender]

The ruck has entirely changed since I was playing, so please bear with my question. Why actually hold on to the ball at the breakdown thus almost certainly conceding a damaging penalty? Why not simply give up the ball? Obviously this is not always practical depending on the field position. A lot of penalties occur when players become isolated. If the players following up know this is to be the intention then they will be in far better position to deal with the turnover which may only result in a clearance to touch with our throw in anyway.

You don't want to let go completely when tackled as you want to present it back and also not have it loose come come out of the ruck prematurely. When someone is competing it can often be a split second when you are hoping that a clear out come in to remove them straight away plus jackallers will often try to pull the ball in towards you to make it seem like you are not releasing and it is almost impossible to free you arms. But in principle, yes - if its clear you not going to win it can be best to let them have it.

 To me it’s almost a split second lottery , if you could think quickly enough to realise to let go before ref blows , but equally the ref could ping for a defender having a hand on floor etc . Does it come down to Coaches to say let go rather than hold and give penalty or is it assumed rest of team should always be there to support?

[Mellie]

I had a different match experience last night - watching on VK without any sound whatsoever. Was interesting to be able to watch the whole game without any interference or anyone else opinion or comments. I quite enjoyed it - well I may have done if we had played better.

First a couple of points on things I have seen mentioned on this and he match thread.
Kicking percentages - as has been pointed out before, Jacob has a better kick % this season and last compared to Jimmy and while not Neil Jenkins is certainly not a 50% kicker.
Turnovers - we are still the team with the most turnovers won this season - we may not have Youngs and Willis at their jackalling best but we have still managed to win plenty.

Personally I don't think 10 is our major issue. Looking at the last few games (particularly yesterday and Quins) it is the breakdown where it goes wrong. Set piece is fine but there are around 40 lineouts and maybe 10-15 scrums a game but around 250 tackles, many of which end up in a ruck - just by sheer volume these have a significant impact on the game and if you are off the boil here it is difficult to control the game.

I'll just add in here that this is in agreement with an awful lot of what hopwood says.

The last two games we have been too slow and too easily out muscled at the breakdown. The opposition backrows haven't been all that on paper - Wallace, White, Jefferies and Heenan are decent squad players, nothing more, but in both games they have spoilt our ball, slowed it down and turned it over. On our attacking rucks we have been late, poorly positioned and ineffective and this meant that the ball was not there to get away quickly. A big part of this is the forwards but part in Robson not being as quick to get there as he was previously, if he is a fraction slower, the opposition can hit the ruck again and destabilise it for a moment and gain a second or two more to ensure they are in position. Robson is also slower at getting the ball away form a 'clean' ruck that he was, I saw him stood hand on ball choosing an option far more than he used to (perception only I have no data on this). If you have a set defensive line in front of you it is hard for a 10 to be all that creative, it doesn't matter if you're Dan Carter, Carlos Spencer or Barry John it's difficult to be creative when the opposition are set and formed in front of you, hence we resorted to more runners off 9 to take contact and try to get quicker ball - rinse and repeat.

We might say this is down to Brad missing, and that is some of it, but it is about balancing the resources we have. We want Tom Willis and Barbeary to be carrying, they are more effective than anyone else - to be effective they should ideally not be hitting too many rucks as that will increase fatigue, low effectiveness and mean they are in a ruck rather than being options to carry the ball or run an effective dummy line. That means that we need to be far better organised in who is tasked to clear out and making sure they are in position to do that and not being carrying options. To see an example of how this works, consider Wales performance against Ireland and the against Scotland (Sam Larner has got some excellent stats on this if anyone is interested). Against Ireland, Wales used their better ball carriers to hit rucks and as a result their carry effusiveness was impaired and Wales had very little gain from their forwards. Against Scotland, props Thomas Francis and Wynn Jones hit a combined 48 rucks (while barely carrying), while ball carriers in Moriarty and Basham hit far fewer but carried more and far more effectivly - for more meters and more gainline success. We have used Alo and West to carry and it is nor as effective as you'd think, they made a combined 7m last night.

I appreciate there is a lot of waffle in their but my point is I think we need to really focus on ensuring quick ball from the breakdown and setting a gameplan to deliver that as other teams are seeing that if they kill us there we have no where to go. Speed did improve when Porter came on and he has looked far better than Robson for four games now, but he still had issues when the forwards didn't secure the breakdown effectively. It is easy to blame playmakers when our attack looks stale but it is difficult without the platform.

At last. A sensible reflection on what was happening from someone who clearly understands the game is played by a team and not individuals.

I too watched in silence, which made it easier to analyse. It was patently obvious that our physicality was nowhere near good enough and our support play when carrying was atrocious. Time and again we had individual runners (forwards) who couldn't make gains in contact. When stopped we did not get sufficient numbers to the breakdown quick enough to contest thereby getting turned over or conceding a penalty.

Without a platform the backs can do nothing, especially with slow service from the 9, apart from broken play where Jacob was outstanding.

The way Wasps like to play needs quick ball to stress the defence. We appear to have a coaching issue on attack as we cannot create quick ball if nobody is there to win our own ball or if they are our ruck speed is so slow.

[Nrgee]

Can anybody enlighten me on what's happened to Ali Crossdale. I never seem to see him listed in the players unavailable.

[Hymenoptera]

Lets start and excuses timeline thread..
First 3rd we blame injuries, second 3rd we are blaming returnees, sweepstake on the final 3rd..tired, lack or prep..