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Schedulers add insult to injury for Wasps
Wasps are on the ropes with a squad that is down to the bare bones and the schedulers have hit them with a low blow ahead of the Champions Cup kick-off.
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The men from Coventry have now lost four in a row in the Premiership and director of rugby Dai Young had 15 first team squad members out injured this weekend. Not an ideal backdrop for them as they head into Europe and those in charge of scheduling have kicked them while they’re down as well.
It’s ludicrous to play Saracens away on Sunday in a big Premiership clash and then your first European game away at Ulster the following Friday. I don’t agree with five-day turnarounds at all. It’s not as if one of them is an Anglo Welsh Cup game and you’re putting the kids out.
The powers that be that are overseeing the scheduling of these fixtures need to take a look at themselves. Going into Europe, there should be an absolute minimum of six days’ preparation for everyone.
Monday will be a recovery day, players will still be recovering on Tuesday, you can train normally on Wednesday but then you have to travel and can only have a light team run, so conceivably Wasps only have one proper day of training to prepare for a big European game.
When you take into consideration how affected they are by injuries at the moment as well, it’s a ludicrous situation to be in. Ulster beat Connacht at home on Friday night, so they’ve had an extra two days of preparation for this weekend’s match compared to Wasps. It beggars belief really.
The club won’t complain about it too much and Dai isn’t the type to look for excuses but it’s a situation that absolutely shouldn’t happen in this day and age.
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I actually thought they fronted up pretty well against Saracens. If you take away the two soft tries they conceded early on in the game, it would have been a narrow defeat away at the European champions with a severely depleted squad.
I was impressed with how much grit and determination they had in the face of adversity and how the young guys like Jack Willis and Marcus Garratt performed. They’ll really benefit from the experience.
However, they lost the gainline battle, admittedly against the most physical defence in the Premiership, but they’ll be disappointed with that. Their set piece was also an issue and they got absolutely destroyed in the scrum at times in the second half, which will hurt Dai Young personally as well as the players.
A change of competition will be good for them this week but it doesn’t get any easier with a trip to Ulster up next.
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When I was at Wasps a couple of years ago we lost our opening two games and then won four on the spin to qualify for the quarter-finals but we were the first team to do that.
It isn’t impossible to get out of your pool if you lose your first two games but it doesn’t happen very often, so they need to pick up a win in the next couple of weeks.
From Wasps’ point of view, a losing bonus point at the Kingspan Stadium on Friday will be a minimum requirement and then they have the chance to get revenge on Harlequins after they ended their home streak in the Premiership a few weeks ago.
As well as Dai Young’s injury crisis, Quins have 45 per cent of their squad unavailable. They have been training with London Irish and the situation is becoming almost unmanageable for certain teams, with those in charge of the new law changes now in the firing line.
It is a balancing act and you can’t just blame the lawmakers for creating lots more contacts when people were crying out for those changes before.
Two years ago everybody was moaning about the ball in play time being too low and saying that needed to improve in order to make the game more attractive.
There are now around 50 more contacts per game than there were in the past few years, according to some statistics that came out recently.
Skill levels have increased and the laws have been changed to make the sport more appealing to the public but the ball being in play for longer means that there are more contacts, there is more fatigue for players and the risk of injury is naturally higher.
We all want to see a more fluid game with less dead time and fewer reset scrums but we don’t want to see the injuries that result from having more contacts, so it’s taking time to get that balance right.
Injuries or no injuries, the Kingspan Stadium is a ridiculously tough place to go but a change is as good as a rest at times and it could be just what Wasps need right now.
Comments on RugbyPass
You probably read that parling is going to coach the wallaby lineout but if not before now you have.
12 Go to commentsIf someone like Leo Cullen was in O’Gara’s place I don’t hear Boo-ing. It’s not just that La Rochelle has hurt Leinster and O’Gara is their Irish boss. It’s the needle that he brings and the pantomime activity before the game around pretending that Munster were supporting LaRochelle just because O’Gara is from Cork. That’s dividing Irish provinces just to get an advantage for his French Team. He can F*ck right off with that. BOOOOO! (but not while someone is lying injured)
1 Go to commentsDid the highlanders party too hard before the game? They were the pits.
1 Go to commentsWhat a player! Not long until he’s in the England side, surely?
1 Go to commentsHe seems to have the same aura as Marcus Smith - by which I mean he’s consistently judged as if he’s several years younger than he actually is. Mngomezulu has played 24 times for the Stormers. When Pollard was his age he had played 24 times for South Africa! He has more time to develop, but he has also had time to do some developing already, and he hasn’t demonstrated nearly as much talent in that time as one would expect. If he is a generational talent, then it must be a pretty poor generation.
4 Go to commentsThe greatest Springbok coach of all time is entirely on the money. Rassie and Jacques have given the south african public a great few years, but the success of the springbok selection policy will need to be judged in light of what comes next. The poor condition that the provincial system is currently in doesn’t bode well for the next few years of international rugby, and the insane 2026 schedule that the Boks have lined up could also really harm both provincial and international consistency.
16 Go to commentsJake White is a brilliant coach and a master in the press. This is another masterclass in media relations and PR but its also a very narrow view with arguments that dont always hold water. White wants his team to win, he wants the best players in SA and wants his team competitive. You however have to face up to the reality of a poor exchange rate and big clubs with big budgets. SA Rugby cant compete and unless it can find more money SA players will keep leaving regardless of Springbok eligibility and this happened in 2015 - 2017. Also rugby is not cricket. Cricket has 3 formats and T20 cricket is where the money is at. When it comes to club vs country the IPL is king but that wont happen because the international calendar does not clash with the club calendar in rugby. So the argument about rugby going down the same path as cricket is really a non-starter
16 Go to commentsNZ rugby seem not to have learnt anything from professional rugby. Super rugby was dying and SA left before they died with the competition. SA rugby did a u turn on their approach to international players playing overseas and such players are now selected for Bok teams. As much as each country would love to retain their players playing in local competitions, this is the way the world is evolving my friends. Move with it or stay 20 years behind the times. One more thing. NZ rugby hierarchy think they are the big cheese. Take a more humble approach guys. You do not seem to have your players best interests at heart.
3 Go to commentsBeaches? In Cardiff? Where?
1 Go to commentsHe is right , the Crusaders will be a threat. Scott Barrett, ( particularly), Fergus Burke , Codie Taylor, ( from sabbatical) etc due back soon for the Crusaders. There are others like Zach Gallagher too. People can right the Crusaders off, Top 8 , here we come !!
1 Go to commentsWe will always struggle for money to match the other sides but the least the WRU can do is invest properly in Welsh rugby. Too much has been squandered on vanity projects like the hotel and roof walk amongst others which will never see a massive return. Hanging the 4 pro sides out to dry over the last decade is now coming back to bite the WRU financially as well as on the pitch. You reap what you sow.
1 Go to commentsWhat do you get if you cross a doctor with a fish? A plastic sturgeon
14 Go to commentsWhat happened to feleti Kaitu’u? Hasnt played in a while right?
1 Go to commentsGregor I just can’t agree with you. You are trying to find something that just isn’t there. Jordie Barrett has signed until 2028. By the end of that he would have spent probably 11-12 years on Super Rugby and you say he can’t possibly have one season playing somewhere else. It is absurd. What about this scenario, the NZR play hard ball and he decides to leave and play overseas. How would that affect the competition. There seems to be an agenda by certain journalists to push certain agendas and don’t like it when it’s not to their liking. I fully support the NZR on this. Gregor needs to get a life.
3 Go to commentsHope he stays as believe he can do a great job.
1 Go to commentsMake what step up? Manie has a World Cup winner’s medal around his neck and changed the way the Springboks can play. He doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone. The win record of the Boks with him in the team is tremendous. Sacha can be wonderful and I hope he has a very succesful Bok career, but comparing him to Manie in terms of the next Bok flyhalf is very strange. Manie is the incumbent (not the next) and doing pretty incredibly.
4 Go to comments00 😍 U
1 Go to commentsSabbaticals have helped keep NZ’s very best talent in the country on long term deals - this fact has been left out of this article. Much like the articles calling to allow overseas players to be selected, yet can only name one player currently not signed to NZR who would be selected for the ABs. And in the entire history of NZ players leaving to play overseas, literally only 4 or 5 have left in their prime as current ABs. (Piatau, Evans, Hayman, Mo’unga,?) Yes Carter got an injury while playing in France 16 years ago, but he also got a tournament ending injury at the 2011 World Cup while taking mid-week practice kicks at goal. Maybe Jordie gets a season-ending injury while playing in Ireland, maybe he gets one next week against the Brumbies. NZR have many shortcomings, but keeping the very best players in the country and/or available for ABs selection is not one of them. Likewise for workload management - players missing 2 games out of 14 is hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Again let’s use some facts - did it stop the Crusaders winning SR so many times consecutively when during any given week they would be missing 2 of their best players? The whole idea of the sabbatical is to reward your best players who are willing to sign very long term deals with some time to do whatever they want. They are not handed out willy-nilly, and at nowhere near the levels that would somehow devalue Super Rugby. In this particular example JB is locked in with NZR for what will probably (hopefully) be the best years of his career, hard to imagine him not sticking around for a couple more after for a Lions tour and one more world cup. He has the potential to become the most capped AB of all time. A much better outcome than him leaving NZ for a minimum of 3 years at the age of 27, unlikely to ever play for the ABs again, which would be the likely alternative.
3 Go to commentsJake White talks more sense than anything I've read in the last 5 years. Hope someone's listening.
16 Go to commentsThe Springboks tried going down the road of only picking home-based players and it was an unmitigated disaster in 2016 and 2017. Picking overseas-based players has been one of the main reason the Boks have done so well since 2018, not only because of the quality Rassie could call on, but because of the knowledge and experience those players brought into camp from England, France and Japan. With some of the big names playing abroad it also gave younger players in SA the chance to break through at franchise level. Would we have seen the emergence of a Ruan Nortje if RG and Lood were still at the Bulls? Not so sure. I understand why Jake would want to block players leaving since his job depends on good results but it’s an approach that would take Bok rugby back to the bad old days and no South African wants to see that.
16 Go to comments