Quins vs Wasps

[Mellsblue]

And again.

What. A. Shift.

[Scrumhead]

Massive credit to Wasps but fuc% me that was awful from Quins. Before the game I expected us to lose, but I am genuinely embarrassed by that performance.

We looked very much like a team in 9th.

[Raggs]

So game of the weekend coming up...

Tommy Taylor has been pulled, replaced by Marcus Garratt (big lump of a lock). Hope it's just illness for Tommy, still disappointing regardless.

Called it...

So despondent after the red, but by good that was good to see. Willis is awesome.

[Mellsblue]

So game of the weekend coming up...

Tommy Taylor has been pulled, replaced by Marcus Garratt (big lump of a lock). Hope it's just illness for Tommy, still disappointing regardless.

Called it...

If Scot v Fra carries on like this you might have to accept second place.

[Mellsblue]

Massive credit to Wasps but fuc% me that was awful from Quins. Before the game I expected us to lose, but I am genuinely embarrassed by that performance.

We looked very much like a team in 9th.

Score those 3 tries you butchered in the first half and it could’ve been very different. Strange match. How much was poor Quins and how much was Wasps nailing every opportunity they had.

[Scrumhead]

Yeah. A bit of both. Had we gone in ahead at half time then who knows? We were genuinely awful in the second half though. We already knew our defence is $hit, but being cut to ribbons by 14 men is an all new low. Easter must go.

[p/d]

Just watched it. Willis is a league above.

[fivepointer]

It appeared at times that Quins were the ones playing with 14 men.

Entertaining stuff with some cracking tries. When Wasps put together their attacking game they are a joy to watch.

Lets not go overboard on Willis.....oh sod it, LETS do just that. The kid was outstanding yet again.

[padprop]

Anyone know where I can watch a rerun of the game? Ive got a BT sport account

[Peej]

Wasps were smart enough to kick quick conversions too on a couple of scores that might've been cancelled out had they been reviewed

[Raggs]

Anyone know where I can watch a rerun of the game? Ive got a BT sport account

All premiership matches are uploaded to the aviva premiership website. Normally Monday/Tuesday. Fantastic service.

[Which Tyler]

Anyone know where I can watch a rerun of the game? Ive got a BT sport account

All premiership matches are uploaded to the aviva premiership website. Normally Monday/Tuesday. Fantastic service.

This.
I haven't found a way to get refund on By when the box fails to record it, but there all there at decent enough quality, cup match about 36-48 hours after the match.

[Beasties]

After last week's display by Willis you wouldn't have thought he'd follow it up in the same stylee. Just bloody awesome. I've not been this excited about a young back rower since Tom Rees. Please don't break him Eddie.

[Puja]

After last week's display by Willis you wouldn't have thought he'd follow it up in the same stylee. Just bloody awesome. I've not been this excited about a young back rower since Tom Rees. Please don't break him Eddie.

Just posted in the EPS thread - are you not concerned about his rucking on your ball? I made a point of watching him when Wasps were in possession and he's never in on the clear-out, indeed I caught a few examples of ruck inspecting. He's incredible at turnovers, great tackler, great carrier, but he won't get into Eddie's squad if he doesn't support and clear out more.

Puja

[Beasties]

I wasn't aware of that Puja, I've obv been so enthusiastic about the lad since I first saw him play that I've got coloured spectacles on. For me, his decision making around the breakdown has been extraordinary up to now. Considering how many turnovers he actually wins he's hardly ever pinged for not releasing. Maybe I need to go and have a cold shower.

[Beasties]

He was personally responsible for at least two counter rucks in this game. I do like a counter ruck. Then again, Wasps can be susceptible to a counter ruck and he's prob complicit in that too as per your post Puja.

[Raggs]

I'll be rewatching at some point, and will definitely keep an eye out for that. Could be the game didn't come his way, or of course that he's not so hot there.

[twitchy]

So game of the weekend coming up...

Tommy Taylor has been pulled, replaced by Marcus Garratt (big lump of a lock). Hope it's just illness for Tommy, still disappointing regardless.

I was just reading about this guy (ex chiefs player from exmouth apparently). How did he get on?

[Raggs]

So game of the weekend coming up...

Tommy Taylor has been pulled, replaced by Marcus Garratt (big lump of a lock). Hope it's just illness for Tommy, still disappointing regardless.

I was just reading about this guy (ex chiefs player from exmouth apparently). How did he get on?

Don't think he's going to be anything more than squad filler. Absolutely enormous human being, his legs are tree trunks.

One thing I absolutely loved though, was his deliberate knock on in the AW cup game against Leicester, that was pure genius. Wasps were defending their try line through repeated lineout mauls, had just got a yellow and were down to 6 men in the pack (were down one already through injury not being replaced). Tigers through the ball in, and he leaps high and just whacks the ball forwards, no attempt to recover it, just smacks it away. Ref just gives it as a knock on, and Tigers run through the phases, advantage over, and Wasps get an intercept. Absolutely professional foul, should have been a stone cold yellow, but due to it being a lineout, and the tigers player up behind him, ref just doesn't twig (no one else seems to either).

Check 76 minutes on the match clock, or 1.49.00 on the video clock: https://www.premiershiprugby.com/video/ ... c-round-4/

I twittered him about it, saying I loved the accidentally deliberate knock on, and he liked it .

[Puja]

I'll be rewatching at some point, and will definitely keep an eye out for that. Could be the game didn't come his way, or of course that he's not so hot there.

Please do tell me what you see. I only started looking out for it about 50 minutes in, simply because I was getting very excited about him and I wanted to make sure he was doing what Eddie wants from a flanker. It may just have been that he took 30 minutes off from support rucking because Quins were beaten and he wanted to carry.

Puja

[Raggs]

Waiting for it to go up, but was thinking perhaps Quins struggled so much in attack to score against 14 men, because they were constantly having to heavily resource the breakdown, and ending up with no advantage in the backline.

Huge amounts of angst going on on their board, but lots directed at Nick Easter, which is fair, but considering they failed to score often against 14 men, at least one of the scores was a pick and go, and the scrum set piece score was focused on blasting through the 10 (I don't know how much a 12 would have helped, it certainly wasn't a play designed to play on the fact your opposition only had 6 in the backline), I have to wonder if Nick Evans needs a bit of inspection too.

[Raggs]

Just posting this here for reference of an international performance (AIs vs Aus):

Stealing this from rugbyplanet forum, thank you RodneyRegis for doing it.

OK - so positive involvements:
Ruck attended (so a 3 ruck mark is one interaction, as is a 1 ruck mark)
Kick, pass, run, offload, break, defender beaten, tackle completed

negative involvements
Missed tackle
pen
turnover conceded

Net positive involvements
Itoje 39 in 63, 6.2 positive involvements every 10 mins
Hughes 37 in 63, 5.9
Hartley 33 in 57, 5.8
Robshaw 46 in 80, 5.8
Launch 45 in 80, 5.6
Lawes 37 in 80, 4.6
Underhill 7 in 17, 4.1
Simmonds 7 in 17, 4.1
Williams 5 in 13, 3.5
MArler 5 in 16, 3.1
Cole 20 in 67, 3.0
Make 19 in 64, 3.0

Hartley's work rate for front rower is impressive. Itoje & Hughes constantly involved, and the engine on Robshaw and Launchbury is incredible.

Again, there are caveats, such as ruck effectiveness isn't included, nor is whether it was a dominant tackle, or a try saver, or a miss due to a pressurising rush, or just a bad miss. Nor is a penalty scored more harshly than a knock on etc.

Just to point out, without counting turnovers won, or rucks in general, Willis is already up to 34 positive contributions in the Quins game, even if he didn't do much on Wasps attacking ball, it already has the appearance of an enormous shift for a 21 year old.

[Mikey Brown]

I thought that was Saturday for a moment. Figured I must have become so one-eyed regarding Hartley that I could barely see a single one of his contributions.

[Raggs]

Just posting this here for reference of an international performance (AIs vs Aus):

Stealing this from rugbyplanet forum, thank you RodneyRegis for doing it.

OK - so positive involvements:
Ruck attended (so a 3 ruck mark is one interaction, as is a 1 ruck mark)
Kick, pass, run, offload, break, defender beaten, tackle completed

negative involvements
Missed tackle
pen
turnover conceded

Net positive involvements
Itoje 39 in 63, 6.2 positive involvements every 10 mins
Hughes 37 in 63, 5.9
Hartley 33 in 57, 5.8
Robshaw 46 in 80, 5.8
Launch 45 in 80, 5.6
Lawes 37 in 80, 4.6
Underhill 7 in 17, 4.1
Simmonds 7 in 17, 4.1
Williams 5 in 13, 3.5
MArler 5 in 16, 3.1
Cole 20 in 67, 3.0
Make 19 in 64, 3.0

Hartley's work rate for front rower is impressive. Itoje & Hughes constantly involved, and the engine on Robshaw and Launchbury is incredible.

Again, there are caveats, such as ruck effectiveness isn't included, nor is whether it was a dominant tackle, or a try saver, or a miss due to a pressurising rush, or just a bad miss. Nor is a penalty scored more harshly than a knock on etc.

OK, so the RodneyRegis numbers doesn't include lineouts. Willis took two lineouts, including one at the tail right near the end of the game, he also got up to put serious pressure and made a mess of one of the Quins lineouts (not a steal though). I am not including these.

Willis was part of 48 rucks. That gives him a total of 82 positive interactions. Please note the list from the Aus game. Launch and Robshaw were the highest that played the whole game with 45 and 46 respectively (that's their rucks hit, and everything else). Itoje had the highest rate at 6.2 every 10 minutes. Willis was basically 10 for every 10. 1 positive interaction every minute of the game. This was in a game where every player would have had to have covered extra distance to make up for the man down. The man is an absolute machine.

There were 21 attacking rucks, and 27 defensive. I only caught him ruck inspecting twice (one may be excused if he thought the box kick was coming), the other times I felt he was at least serving some purpose.

He successfully cleaned up 3 loose and bouncing balls, one from a lineout he slid in, grabbed it, got to his feet in one smooth movement, and proceeded to beat the first defender and carry another 5 yards with 2/3 defenders on him.

He caught one of Wasps short restarts from Cips, which is a very handy skill as well.

In terms of an Eddie type 7, not too many big clearouts on attack, but then it mostly wasn't required, and I didn't see him fail on one. There was one blindside break from the scrum, where Wallace was over the ball and Willis cleared him out cleanly, definitely capable of big clearouts. Should he have been there first? Maybe, but he could have been expecting Thompson to offload or pass before going to ground. Did potentially seem a little slow of the scrum later in the game, but it may be he's been told to shove as the blindside, rather than look to break.

A few times he didn't get given a ruck mark, as he was supporting the carrier through, and just came off his feet as they both went down, still providing a useful service though.

When the ball comes to where he is, he definitely seems to be a preferred carrier, so won't be clearing out as much.

First successful turnover 33.40 with a counter ruck, Matthews then throws it up off the ground and is penalised. Sinckler throws the ball at Willis' face, Willis reacts fast enough to catch it (does lots of crazy catch practice with Hask judging from the videos!), Ward complains he played the 9 (nope, the 9 just got squashed by Quins own man), Sinkler then starts F-ing and blinding, gets sent back 10.

2nd turnover, steals the ball at 38.45, killing a promising Quins attack. 3 Quins on him, enormous strength shown.

3rd turnover, Guy Thompson asks if they can counter ruck, Barnes says yes, Willis obliges.

4th turnover 54.17 He'd seriously slowed good attacking ball a few phases earlier, and now turnsover 5m from the tryline. And it's not that he's got lightweights trying to clear him, Sinkler hits him, Ward has a go, Chisholm throws in a shoulder too. He took a massive hit from Matthews in that earlier slow down too.

5th turnover 73.45. Tested the previous ruck but gave it up, got this one.

75m and Willis is still making powerful carries.

81.50 Slows Quins right down after they took a quick tap, gives our defence a chance to organise.

Overall, bloody hell. Compared to the Aus ruck marks and interactions, Willis is a mile ahead, same is true of the previous international game I did. I also did a Wasps game from a while back, where Guy Thompson was massively busy, hitting 35 rucks and a ton of other stuff, and still only got to 64 total interactions. OK, I didn't break down the actual score of each ruck for Willis, as with the changes, it's going to be lower due to less hits being required, but 5 turnovers is 25 points on it's own. He slowed ball enough to score probably another 12 points at least from failed steals, and had the big hit on Wallace, so take 10 rucks away from 48, and even if the rest are just 1 pointers (which they aren't, guard is 2 and will makeup a good number of those), he still scores 79 ruck marks absolute minimum. More likely to be pushing the 100 mark would be my guess.

Asides:

I know Hughes gets a lot of stick here, but he knows the laws and adaptations. Very late in the game Matthews moves the ball with his hands, and Hughes yells he's moved it and goes for him. Barnes penalises him, Hughes tells him he moved it, Barnes says he has to lift it (but that's not true as of this weekend, moving it with the hands is enough). He's generally been smart with the no offside line when no ruck (not that it applies anymore), and the tackled, release, stand and run again. Where he lets himself down, including this Matthews one, is he doesn't consider what is likely to happen. He's sure he's right (and he often is), but doesn't think about how the ref is likely to react.

That tackle from Alofa on Bassett is nasty, they replay it, but don't realise that it's well after the whistle on the replay, Alofa doesn't even have hold of Bassett when the whistle goes.

[bitts]

Just posting this here for reference of an international performance (AIs vs Aus):

Stealing this from rugbyplanet forum, thank you RodneyRegis for doing it.



Again, there are caveats, such as ruck effectiveness isn't included, nor is whether it was a dominant tackle, or a try saver, or a miss due to a pressurising rush, or just a bad miss. Nor is a penalty scored more harshly than a knock on etc.

OK, so the RodneyRegis numbers doesn't include lineouts. Willis took two lineouts, including one at the tail right near the end of the game, he also got up to put serious pressure and made a mess of one of the Quins lineouts (not a steal though). I am not including these.

Willis was part of 48 rucks. That gives him a total of 82 positive interactions. Please note the list from the Aus game. Launch and Robshaw were the highest that played the whole game with 45 and 46 respectively (that's their rucks hit, and everything else). Itoje had the highest rate at 6.2 every 10 minutes. Willis was basically 10 for every 10. 1 positive interaction every minute of the game. This was in a game where every player would have had to have covered extra distance to make up for the man down. The man is an absolute machine.

There were 21 attacking rucks, and 27 defensive. I only caught him ruck inspecting twice (one may be excused if he thought the box kick was coming), the other times I felt he was at least serving some purpose.

He successfully cleaned up 3 loose and bouncing balls, one from a lineout he slid in, grabbed it, got to his feet in one smooth movement, and proceeded to beat the first defender and carry another 5 yards with 2/3 defenders on him.

He caught one of Wasps short restarts from Cips, which is a very handy skill as well.

In terms of an Eddie type 7, not too many big clearouts on attack, but then it mostly wasn't required, and I didn't see him fail on one. There was one blindside break from the scrum, where Wallace was over the ball and Willis cleared him out cleanly, definitely capable of big clearouts. Should he have been there first? Maybe, but he could have been expecting Thompson to offload or pass before going to ground. Did potentially seem a little slow of the scrum later in the game, but it may be he's been told to shove as the blindside, rather than look to break.

A few times he didn't get given a ruck mark, as he was supporting the carrier through, and just came off his feet as they both went down, still providing a useful service though.

When the ball comes to where he is, he definitely seems to be a preferred carrier, so won't be clearing out as much.

First successful turnover 33.40 with a counter ruck, Matthews then throws it up off the ground and is penalised. Sinckler throws the ball at Willis' face, Willis reacts fast enough to catch it (does lots of crazy catch practice with Hask judging from the videos!), Ward complains he played the 9 (nope, the 9 just got squashed by Quins own man), Sinkler then starts F-ing and blinding, gets sent back 10.

2nd turnover, steals the ball at 38.45, killing a promising Quins attack. 3 Quins on him, enormous strength shown.

3rd turnover, Guy Thompson asks if they can counter ruck, Barnes says yes, Willis obliges.

4th turnover 54.17 He'd seriously slowed good attacking ball a few phases earlier, and now turnsover 5m from the tryline. And it's not that he's got lightweights trying to clear him, Sinkler hits him, Ward has a go, Chisholm throws in a shoulder too. He took a massive hit from Matthews in that earlier slow down too.

5th turnover 73.45. Tested the previous ruck but gave it up, got this one.

75m and Willis is still making powerful carries.

81.50 Slows Quins right down after they took a quick tap, gives our defence a chance to organise.

Overall, bloody hell. Compared to the Aus ruck marks and interactions, Willis is a mile ahead, same is true of the previous international game I did. I also did a Wasps game from a while back, where Guy Thompson was massively busy, hitting 35 rucks and a ton of other stuff, and still only got to 64 total interactions. OK, I didn't break down the actual score of each ruck for Willis, as with the changes, it's going to be lower due to less hits being required, but 5 turnovers is 25 points on it's own. He slowed ball enough to score probably another 12 points at least from failed steals, and had the big hit on Wallace, so take 10 rucks away from 48, and even if the rest are just 1 pointers (which they aren't, guard is 2 and will makeup a good number of those), he still scores 79 ruck marks absolute minimum. More likely to be pushing the 100 mark would be my guess.

Asides:

I know Hughes gets a lot of stick here, but he knows the laws and adaptations. Very late in the game Matthews moves the ball with his hands, and Hughes yells he's moved it and goes for him. Barnes penalises him, Hughes tells him he moved it, Barnes says he has to lift it (but that's not true as of this weekend, moving it with the hands is enough). He's generally been smart with the no offside line when no ruck (not that it applies anymore), and the tackled, release, stand and run again. Where he lets himself down, including this Matthews one, is he doesn't consider what is likely to happen. He's sure he's right (and he often is), but doesn't think about how the ref is likely to react.

That tackle from Alofa on Bassett is nasty, they replay it, but don't realise that it's well after the whistle on the replay, Alofa doesn't even have hold of Bassett when the whistle goes.

There was one ruck where he counter ruck and looked like he snapped the quins player in half and pushed him off. Just showing raw strengh and aggression. I remember thinking, 'Eddie will love this'.