Normal Service Resumed

Fullerians are a side whose league position belies their scrummaging strength (first time I've seen Wasps go backwards all year.. only a couple of times!) with a couple of fantastic backs. Wasps, with quite a number of missing players due to injury, definitely needed to up their game... which they did.

There are a number of strong positives from this match. The first is that the crash ball was not used without guile [note the double negative]; for the first time in many matches the team managed to play a more expansive game with fantastic off-loading resulting in many of the tries. The second major positive is the way that the backs clicked in both attack and defence with two of the eight tries coming from backs and only a couple of squandered opportunities due to a few simple errors.

There aren't many negatives, but if Wasps are to continue this fantastic progression then a few issues will need to be ironed out. There were simply too many knock-ons. It took until about the tenth scrum before Wasps had their own put in. This simply reflects a lack of accuracy in execution, particularly the short pop pass. The only way to remedy this is to put in the hours on the training pitch to raise skill levels. The second issue is simply about decision-making. The second half in particular allowed Fullerians to make a couple of scores due to the Wasps team playing too loose and not doing the basics of ball protection, working hard to recover the defensive and line and playing for field position (the first half was 34:0; the second 17:12) .

The final slight negative was our scrummaging. We certainly recognise the immense strength of each of our players, but it is clear that sometimes the scrummaging technique does not get to the levels that are required to play at a higher level.

The boys should now all be preparing for rugby next year; they know that the league victory is definitely still on and so winning League 2 is the immediate target... the 12 month target is to win League 1.

A few comments about the players: Will N was fantastic at fly-half having been thrown in there due to multiple injuries. We are blessed with having two great scrum-halves and Greg is now fully recovered from his injury and playing back at his high level. Jed had a great game in the centres and demonstrated his deserved call up to the As. It was great to see Lewis G score in a league match... we hope to see many more of those in weeks to come.

Tries: Zico (3), Sam T, Jae, Charbel, Lewis G, David.
Conversions: David (4)
Penalties: David (1)

Man of the Match. Zico. Immense.