I’ve been avoiding the internet following our two latest defeats but have been giving some though to what has changed and it’s a surprisingly quiet Monday morning at work. So, many apologies for the essay that follows (please feel free to stop reading here or after the next paragraph if you just want the precis!).
The jist of this is that in my opinion the playing systems we had and were able to execute better than anyone else are no longer working mostly due to player changes and absences. I’m going to look at the last four years and how we built a style and then lost it. I will of course stick my £5 in the site donations for mentioning Cipriani as I think that is inevitable!
Playing systems. Every team has a style and a system, some are obvious and noticeable and I think the more successful a team is, the more obvious their style is. In the Premiership think Exeter retaining a higher percentage of their ball and backing having a near perfect ruck success rate to wear down a defence and then use their power game from short range or Sarries having an intelligent kicking game, either kicking to compete with both their forwards and back three players good in the air or kicking for territory and suffocating the other team on their 10m line.
As Dai tried to build the team, between the last gasp rescue from relegation to the arrival of ‘superstars’ in the 15/16 season we had a powerful, hardworking and dynamic backrow (Hask, Ash, Sam Jones, Billy/Nathan), a super quick 9, a metronomic 10, some midfield class (Masi, Daly) and in Wade and Varndell two top, quick wingers who knew how to score as well as anyone in the league. In 2015/16, Smith and Piatau added that ‘X factor’ that made us a lot more competitive, we were often our best on the rare days that Jackson clicked at 10 and provided a bit of sparkle but he was too inconsistent and Jimmy’s reliability proved the better match. The next year, Cips was able to elevate the team and with more consistent creativity at 10 and I think that despite our frailties we were the best team in the league. The next year we suffered as we lost key players (Taylor and Symons out for the year, Hask and Nathan out for much of it) and had a period with a huge chuck of the squad missing that cost us. However throughout all of this, we lacked three basic things and we have never been able to get a handle on them – Composure, Discipline and Game Management.
So the negatives. The above three have cost us from achieving success and are still very much in evidence. Before the Newcastle game, I sure we remember at Bristol we held a precarious lead and tried to play the clock down with three minutes to go, what happened? Rowlands infringed and we had a nervy lineout to defend that we just about managed to. But this has always been happening. I’m sure there still a little bitterness about the Connaught game where Gaüzère allowed them to take a lineout after the clock had one red before the rule change but the reason for that was that we tried to run down the clock too early and someone missed their clear-out and Guy was pinged for holding on – line out, try, dropped points, we end up in Dublin and going out in the quarters. Again the Prem final that year – we may thing that Nathan had every right to go for the ball but he didn’t listen – we didn’t back ourselves, tried to force it and paid the price. Every time I’ve watched a game on BT and Dai has been spoken to he has bemoaned our lack of composure and management but in all these years he and the other coaches haven’t been able to impose that discipline on the team in the way that the likes of Baxter, Sanderson, Gustard etc have.
How did we win so many games then? For me, there were three key elements.
(1) COUNTER-ATTACKING. When George Smith arrived we found ourselves able to compete at the breakdown far more and far more efficiently than we were before. Smith helped Thomas Young who came on hugely that year and Guy Thompson as well as Hask and laying the work for Jack Willis. We competed at the breakdown not by pushing the ball into the player and winning the penalty but more often than not, going for the rip and getting it into the back as soon as possible. Getting the ball back to Piatau and then in subsequent seasons to Beale/le Roux and even Miller when he was in the form of his life we had world class options to run the ball back at a broken field where the opposition hadn’t got their defence set. All of those players were ‘heads up‘ players who would run more than kick and with the like of Daly, Wade and Bassett we had the pace to exploit this. As a team we were one of the best in the league at the breakdown, Smith, Young, Willis, Thompson, Hughes (I think people forget how good he used to be a winning turnovers), Launchbury, Taylor and JCW – all very good – and then we were easily the most dangerous team on the counter and this accounted for a lot of territory and tries.
(2) FIRST PHASE SET PLAYS. This improved in the 2016/17 season with the arrival of Cips. Say what you like but I think he is one of the very best at first phase play. He plays flat and is an excellent communicator. Whenever I watch him play he always seems to be talking, getting the back line in the right positions, calling the plays and when play stops telling people where they should have been and what they should have done. He is always demanding. It’s the same with Farrell, Sexton, most top 10s. Add his vision to that and the fact that our back line had similar players with good communication and vision (Gopperth and Beale/le Roux) and we had something special. Look back at our tries in the two years prior to this and you’ll see a lot of first phase tries. A perfect example would be Daly’s try against Leicester last year: (ignore the dodgy lineout throw) ball of the top from the 10m line, crisp hand, great dummy runs and loops, Daly has an overlap and the ball in his hands 30m out, touch of the gas pedal and over the line. We did this a lot. Again, watching on BT, Healy would be purring at the way we played off set pieces and whatever you think about the bloke he knows good back play. The ‘heads up’ play off set pieces also worked for a quick change decision where we saw a mismatch – see Gopperth’s try against Saints in 2016 where we started from a scrum on our 5m line and Cips saw a gap on the blindside went for it, kick came off and Guy and Jimmy ran great support lines (more on that below). Obviously it wasn’t all about Danny, as I’ve said having two other playmakers was important as was having the threat that a player like Wade posed as he would always draw his marker and could run dummy lines that had to be covered.
(3) SUPPORT LINES* The asterisk is because this isn’t a tactical plan, but it is a reason we scored so many tires. I think we have two of the best support line runners in the country in Dan Robson and Thomas Young. Armchair England fans were able to see on Saturday what we have grown used to, Dan ambling across the field on a great line to be the first at the breakdown to get quick ball back and most crucially, when the ball-carrier makes a line-break, a slight turn of the hips and he is on his shoulder to run either the blocking line or to take the pass or off-load and canter in – this is one of the reason he has one of the best strike rates of any 9. Thomas Young could have been a 9 too. He often looks like he plays like a 5 year old playing football, chasing the ball and always being where it maters (incidentally I was taught this is a hallmark of a good openside) it is one reason why he usually has a huge tackle count, is over the ball so much and also on a players shoulder when they make a break, add his genuine pace and you can see why he also has a great strike rate for a backrow. Guy and Taylor were good at running support lines too and Carr seems to be also. Every team will make line breaks but it is usually the presence of a good support runner that turns that into a try and that is an area we excelled. I also think (haven’t looked at data to back this up) that with the players we had – Nathan playing wider and running the 12/13 channel, Ash and Guy, Wade with his dancing feet – we made an above average number of line breaks.
So, what has changed? Well, let’s look at those areas:
(1) This season we have won a lot less turnovers. Smith and Guy have gone, Willis has been out for the whole season up to the last couple of games, Taylor, Launch and JCW have missed a lot and even Thomas Young has been injured and away with Wales. That has meant a lot less quick turnover ball and when we have got it we haven’t counter attacked. At 15, both Daly and le Roux have kicked more this season than either did previously. Now one could blame them and suggest that they have been below par (I don’t think this would be unfair, I don’t think either has played as well as then can do) but they perhaps also lack faith in a back line that has had a ‘second string’ feel to it to be able to counter properly and therefore they have felt the kick has been the better percentage play. Either way, it turns the ball over to the opposition and means that we are no longer a counter attacking threat.
(2) This isn’t me saying Sopoaga is rubbish, he’s clearly a decent player but I don’t think he has been the best fit for the way we played. This is partly down to him being a different player and also him coming into the side without a pre-season and chopping and changing at 9 and 12 which has maybe meant he has been unable to implant his style. However, there are a couple of clear differences I can see. First is that he plays deeper, this has meant that we are getting caught behind the gainline so many times. Secondly, he doesn’t communicate as much. He seems a much more reserved and less vocal 10. I think that when he was playing really well for the ‘Landers, he had the benefit of Aaron Smith at 9. Smith is a very vocal and controlling 9 and I think that with Smith calling more plays, Lima was able to play his game. We aren’t used to that and are used to our 10 making the calls and I don’t think that this suits Lima’s game as much. This is something that the coaches should have been able to deal with by now and clearly haven’t. Billy Searle has tried his best but he is still young. For those that read Cips recent interview, he says how Kinga told him that a 10 often plays best after 30 and I don’t think Billy has the experience or confidence to dictate plays in the way Cips did. Miller I think we can all forgive as he has done his best at 10 but this isn’t his day job.
(3) We still do this to some extent but with the changed personnel (no Wade, Nathan away a lot, no Guy) we are making less linebreaks and Dan has missed more game this year than any other and Young and Taylor and have injuries etc so we are not as good at it.
What are we left with then? Not a lot sadly. I have read from people here and elsewhere that we lack a plan B but to be honest I can’t see a plan A. Normally when I watch rugby, even I can see what a team is trying to achieve with each set of phases. I can’t see that with Wasps at the moment. We seem to be trucking up one off runners or pods and waiting for the almost inevitable handling error or loss of discipline.
Whose fault is this? Well, the players have to take responsibility for their performances and while there have been some very good performances this season there are not a lot of players who can claim to be in credit for the season (Dan, Young, Neal, de Jong and the front row generally). Rowlands has got a lot of unnecessary criticism in my opinion but his ill-discipline has cost us a few times and that is the case with a lot of the forwards. Daly and le Roux have looked frustrated and ineffective, Simpson is not the player he was 3+ years ago, Hampson is not a Prem quality player, Bassett has looked ordinary a lot of the time, Booj and Gaby have had flashes but generally not impressed at 12, Watson has looked good at times and missing at others, The issues at 10 I’ve covered. Surely the coaches have to take some responsibility for the lack of clarity and direction. If the players can’t come up with a plan on the hoof then surely they need to have had some more input in training to try some different set plays, but we don’t see anything that creative on the pitch. Dai bemoans ill-discipline but it continues every game and has done for several years.
Is it all doom and gloom? I hope not. I am a generally positive person and I will remain hopeful and positive but much as thoughts and prayers don’t offer material help, neither will hope change our fortunes. I think that Top 6 is gone, we have a tough run in and even with Jimmy coming back I don’t think that is going to change us into world beaters. We won’t be relegated (he says) so we have nothing to play for the rest of the season. Without wanting to sound like a broken record on the DW site, let’s give the youngsters a chance. If Porter is fit again, let’s have him on the bench, Joe is off next year and Hampson offers little so let’s see what Porter can do with 15mins at the end of each game. Jacob should be playing, I’d start him next week to be fair, it doesn’t really matter if we lose by 8 or 80 so why not see what he’s learnt at Auckland and Carnegie. Tom West should be playing too, Harris has been a success but we know what he can do now and Tom Willis should be in the squad when he gets back from 6 Nations’ duty.
Anyways that’s enough. If you persevered to the end, thanks. COYW
Always a Wasp
