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'Tony Spreadbury was in with me last week... we're losing games by a point and every penalty counts'

(Photo by PA)

Wasps boss Lee Blackett is hoping they can shake off their reputation as this season’s most indisciplined Gallagher Premiership team and catch a Heineken Champions Cup break when they are refereed by a non-English official – Ireland’s Frank Murphy – when they host Clermont on Saturday in the round of 16. 

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Blackett’s side come into the Ricoh Arena tie having conceded 190 penalties in this season’s Premiership, seven more than next-worst Sale and 28 more than league leagues Bristol. Worcester, the most disciplined side, have conceded only 126 penalties. 

The malaise saw Wasps take remedial action last month by having referee Christophe Ridley in to take charge of their training ground matches, but they slipped back into back habits in last weekend’s loss to Sale, conceding 14 penalties and losing for the seventh time in their last nine league matches.     

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It was also the fourth match in succession they lost at the Ricoh by six points or less, the margin of defeat being just a single point in their last two home games. It has left Blackett feeling on edge and still asking for guidance from the RFU on where his Wasps have been going wrong ahead of their Champions Cup tie. “You have got to be aware of what is going on out there,” he said.

“Tony Spreadbury (the RFU referees boss) was in with me last week. Those conversations are happening all the time weekly and I have conversations with the referee that is refereeing the next game and also speaking to the referee we have just had previously. It’s massive at the moment. We are losing games by a point, the last couple of home games by a point. There are such tight margins and every penalty counts and all we are trying to do is make ourselves squeaky clean in terms of that area.”

 

Asked whether any patterns had emerged about specific areas of repeat offending, Blackett added: “We worked really hard defensively and we started in the last couple of weeks move away from giving defensive penalties away and then we had a bad one again at the weekend, so it’s that constant reminder that it’s every single week and we can’t just put an emphasis on one area to fix ourselves up. 

“It was a big penalty count. Sale had 16 so they were worse than us but we were not happy with 14. If you came and asked me a year ago it was always single figures and it was brilliant – 14 is a few too many but the game at the moment with the penalty issues there seems to be a higher penalty count consistently.” 

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J
JW 17 minutes ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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