Wasps
2009 and where are Wasps heading?
Wasps Past
By KevintheB
January 2 2009
People with long memories can remember when Wasps didn’t have the greatest team ever, so what is it about the start of this season which has apparently raised the ire of so many seasoned supporters? To keep us going for another fortnight, KevinTheB provides this contentious view of the end of 2008 and the start of 2009. Feel free to disagree.
My first suggestion is that the ELVs have had a mixed influence, and the reaction of our coaching staff to these changes has been either delayed or ineffective. Dealing with the changes, the most damaging to the whole game for me, and not just for Wasps, has been the allowed collapse of the maul. Not just the rolling maul from a lineout close to the goal line, but to all mauls. Born of a desire by some “knowledgeable administrators” to speed up the game (and I am a supporter of the view that a faster game doesn’t mean it is a better one), it allows the complete negation of one of the most physical and technical aspects of the great game of rugby. This one change prevents a team from creating space by forcing the opposition to put bodies into the contact situation and thereby removing them from the defensive line. The sooner this is sent to the scrapheap and proper rugby allowed to be played the better. If this means that the Australian RFU cannot get its own way and suffers against the League game in their own country … do I care?
But given that the game is played this year under these “variations”, the way we have dealt with them seems to me to have been quite badly managed. Some teams have blossomed under them, but Wasps seem to have gone in to a style which continues to be based on phases of play, despite opposition not being required to defend the contact. We now seem to be moving the ball laterally through a lot of phases until we lose it. Allied to this is the admitted tactic of simply hoofing the ball downfield to make sure any penalties aren’t given in a kickable position, meaning the fare dished up by the current Premiership champions, with the exception of one set of plays against Saracens, has been very poor this season.
Secondly, refereeing inconsistency has caused immense frustration. Not the quality of the officiating, but the way that you see a game being interpreted differently one week from the next. The ELVs were intended, I believe, to remove the influence of the referee from the result … seems to me that this has been increased.
Thirdly, I think the long term future of Wasps is also at a pivotal stage. Under Chris Wright’s “frugal” ownership, we quite frankly punched way above our weight, completely because we had exceptional players following forward thinking strategies and tactics. Many of these exceptional players have hung up the boots, and we haven’t come up with a style of play that suits our current squad’s strengths or, if we have, it isn’t working yet. At the same time, the continuing saga of the future of Adams Park (not necessarily moving away or back to London, but the complete mismanagement of the stories coming out about redevelopment, improvement or replacement) is frankly depressing, and as a poster to the message board said recently, you only have to look at the number of unbranded hospitality boxes on matchdays to see the effect this uncertainty is having. Steve Hayes does not appear to be either daft or silly with his money, so he must have realised this when he bought out Mr Wright, and it will be good to hear positive plans … but no more false dawns, please.
But most of all, the rugby on display has been the most significant disappointment for me.
I do understand that Wasps are never guaranteed a win. I do understand that buying a ticket doesn’t give me the right to dictate how the side plays. I do understand that the current coaching staff know much more about rugby than I will ever do … they even know more than Barney.
But I also understand that I travel in to Adams Park most home games to watch a good game of rugby. In past years, we have been privileged to watch exciting games, whatever the result. This season the kick-fests have left a lingering memory of boredom, and I think that this itself is the real reason for the displeasure – the sheer frustration felt by the supporters when we just boot the ball away.
I was berated after the first few games of the season for writing to the Club and asking for my season ticket purchase price back, but the reason for this is still valid – I paid to watch Wasps, and in my opinion Wasps still haven't come out of the tunnel.
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Stumbleupon02/01/2009 12:53
Christchurch Wasp Esq.
Agree with most of what Kevin says, especially about the collapsing of mauls. That wasa good forward feature of rugby and it just seems a plain daft experiment (I hope). Wasps have always done a lot of kicking down into the middle of the pitch, supposedly to wear out the opposition. Now almost everyone does it and it gets very boring.
Also agree about the plays agaisnt Sarries being memories of the past fast pace of play. It seems that Bath and to some extent Quins are now playing that way too, irrespective of the ELVs, and look where they are in the current league.
Players. Experience may suggest that Wasps & England may have let Cipriani come back too quickly.He looks nervous and seems to avoid the tackle, not something he did in previous seasons. Remember his tackle at fullback to bring down one of the large Leicester wingers in the HEC final. Haskell seems to be doing his own min-Wasps recovery in the last couple of games after being quiet at the start of the season - and Rees has therefore had to taker on an enormous workload; our player of the season so far.
The good things - Webber coming forward as a strong hooker; the wise signing of Mitchell who is still very young; hopefully the development of Beech as a strong prop; Birkett coming back to his majestic form of a couple of seasons ago; Simpson coming forward to challenge Reddin.
Well played, that was rugby as it should be played.
Now if the backs could find a bit of their confidence ... there were more signs ...
KevinTheB
www.justgiving.com/kevinbroadbent
I would add that with all team sports on-field captaincy and off-field management is absolutely key to success especially to supplement the mental toughness required from the players.
The club has spectacularly failed to manage the succession after LOL although at one time I had understood John Hart was being groomed for the role.
Far too often and at a variety of stages in a match the body language from our team has been all wrong. The only time this season we have the seen the fully fired up Wasps of old was during the Quins home match, where Serge led the revival.
Serge would be a good choice as leader, if Rafa is still out, when Vicks goes off to England's cause.
) come on guys its not all doom and gloom.. I know the club has a habit of making a consistant flow of off field F*** Ups but lets get behind the team and help them with the confidence issue...
We have some word class players who would walk into most teams so lets not get too down..
Lets just hope the board treat the players as England players and not the WWFC nobodies...
