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Can Wasps fix their fatal flaw?
With the 2017/18 Aviva Premiership season hurtling ever closer, like a freight train painted a gaudy yellow and blue, Dan Johansson asks whether last season’s beaten finalists Wasps can overcome their defensive deficits to lift some long awaited silverware.
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With the much maligned move to Coventry firmly established and proving fruitful, Wasps turned it up a notch last season by playing some absolutely gorgeous rugby.
RT if #GopperthFinish is your @Purityale #PureGold Moment of 16/17. Join us to find out the 17/18 #PureGold moment https://t.co/u0fvkrVdhn pic.twitter.com/hhTL36bO6S
— Wasps Rugby (@WaspsRugby) July 31, 2017
The likes of Jimmy Gopperth, Elliot Daly and Christian Wade raised their game to make Wasps the most formidable attacking outfit in the league. Unfortunately, this offensive flair seemed to come at a cost. Despite vastly outperforming everyone else when it came to points scoring, no other team in the top 7 conceded more tries. Wasps’ patchy defence and occasional ill-discipline would ultimately prove their undoing, falling to a determined Exeter Chiefs side after extra time in a hotly contested Premiership final.
Last season will have reminded the black and yellow side that attacking flair alone won’t be enough to herald a return to the glory days of the early 2000s. Despite tries coming from all over the field, Wasps’ defensive vulnerabilities meant few teams genuinely feared the sting, knowing opportunities for their own scores wouldn’t be far away.
Wasps will go into this season knowing that unless they tighten up their defence, better rounded teams will punish them. However, that’s easier said than done, unless of course they can somehow figure out how to clone Thomas Young, who seemed to tackle everything in sight and then some. For whatever reason, Wasps just couldn’t prevent holes being punched in their defensive line, regardless of the individual ability of each player.
Of course, regardless of a seemingly soft underbelly, Wasps topped the league, winning more games than anyone else in the process. They are a formidable outfit, and few would put money on them not being at the north end of the table come season’s end. Whilst other teams may hope that they’ve figured out how to neutralise Wasps’ attacking threats for this campaign, the sheer talent on display makes this a difficult job. Elliot Daly had a stellar Lions tour and will be full of confidence.
Christian Wade and the newly signed Marcus Watson have proven their match fitness and potency by tearing it up on the way to victory at the Singha 7s tournament this summer, and even if Jimmy Gopperth can’t replicate his outstanding form from last year the equally capable Danny Cipriani is waiting in the wings.
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In terms of outgoings, the most notable loss is Kurtley Beale, at least name-wise. That said, despite making the Rugby Pass Team of the Year , you get the feeling Wasps are more than capable of losing such a high profile star without any major hit to performance, especially if Willie Le Roux can remember to, you know, actually keep hold of the ball when approaching the try line.
Despite all this, the ability to create chances means nothing if you can’t keep the opposition from scoring at will. Christian Wade was by far the top try scorer in the Premiership last season, but his inability to perform consistently on the back foot is why Eddie Jones was able to overlook him for England.
Wasps recruitment won’t have done much to assure supporters that the colander defence is a thing of the past either. Juan de Jongh will be joining from the Stormers as a replacement for Nick De Luca, and has earned plaudits in South Africa for his strong defence despite relatively diminutive size. However, few Stormers fans will be sad to see him go, with injuries and mixed form seeing de Jongh dropped from the full Springboks squad into the South Africa ‘A’ team. He may well find a new lease of life at the Ricoh, but Wasps fans won’t be counting their larvae before they hatch.
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With painful memories of a lost final providing plenty of motivation, Wasps’ odds of going one step further this season look reasonable, but will largely depend on whether they can sort out their leaky rear-guard (no giggling please), and of course whether other sides can figure out how to prevent their superstars from strutting their stuff. It wouldn’t be overly surprising to see Wasps tinkering with a couple of different playing strategies this season as they try to develop a more well-rounded game.
Expect to see a renewed focus on the set piece and a few more kicks at goal in an attempt to keep the opposition honest. I’d also put money on the league’s top try scorer again coming from the Wasps side, though exactly who that’ll be is less obvious. What is clear though is that replicating last season’s first place finish is going to be exceptionally tough if Wasps can’t start demonstrating the same level of chemistry without the ball as they do with it.
