If ever there was a game that made me question Lee, it was today.
Our backs are shambolic, we are further away from a settled back line than ever.
Picking Kiberige is bonkers. Not picking Odogwu, twice as much. Not even going to talk about Jacob, that is a thread in itself. I can see why he went with Malakai, although I think it was probably wrong.
To measure of selection is not who you pick when rotating vs Sarries, because giving up that game was pragmatic, or the robotic subs you make as the team falls apart vs Irish, because frankly anyone can fall apart like that against them, collapses are part of the sport. What matters is how you pick from a position of strength, and by and large once the numbers go above 9 it starts to go wrong.
I do not see training. I don't attend Monday debrief. I don't know who is a leader I would follow into battle. I do see the team on the pitch and maybe Kiberige and Umaga are doing unseen work that Lee is seeing and I, with my untrained eye don't. Or, possibly, maybe this is the worst Wasps pro era back line.
Even at our nadir, a backline of Wade, Varndell, Daly, Jacobs, Southwell, Robinson et al would comfortably be better than what we have seen this year. Frankly any Wasps backline from pre 2018 would have had us in the final with those forwards today. I am not saying the forwards were blameless, but the root issue is if they are a mile better than the opposition we still end up.in tight games. Our forwards are better than anything since 2007, our backs are poor, and we are no closer to a settled line up than we were at the start of the year.