RugbyRebels

Wasps 23:

West
Cruse
Alo
Gaskell
Stooke
Fifita
Morris
T. Willis

Robson
Atkinson
Bassett
Mills
Spink
Odogwu
Umaga

BENCH: Oghre, Hislop, Toomaga-Allen, Carr, J. Willis, Porter, Gopperth, Watson.

Jack Willis! Jack Willis! This is not a drill!

Excellent news about Jack Willis and its also good to see his brother back in the side.

Their opponents.

Harlequins: 15 Tyrone Green, 14 Oscar Beard, 13 Huw Jones, 12 Andre Esterhuizen, 11 Cadan Murley, 10 Will Edwards, 9 Danny Care, 8 Archie White, 7 Luke Wallace, 6 Stephan Lewies (c), 5 Hugh Tizard, 4 Matt Symons, 3 Will Collier, 2 Jack Walker, 1 Joe Marler
Replacements:16 Sam Riley, 17 Simon Kerrod, 18 Wilco Louw, 19 Tom Lawday, 20 James Chisholm, 21 Lewis Gjaltema, 22 Tommy Allan, 23 Louis Lynagh

Even as a Quins fan, I am genuinely delighted to see Jack Willis. Hopefully the first step on the road to a full recovery.

Not quite on the same scale, but also great to see Lewies back for Quins with Louw, Lawday and Chisholm on the bench.

It's also the annual Pride match, so get those rainbow flags out!

Very excited for Jack, nervous about how he'll be.

Also excited to see Mills and Spink, especially with odogwu looking for work.

Any news on Will Evans for Quins?

Raggs wrote:Very excited for Jack, nervous about how he'll be.

Also excited to see Mills and Spink, especially with odogwu looking for work.

Its a hard one for JW- the way he plays puts him in harms way for the sort of injuries he's suffered, but if he thinks too much about when he competes, he'll use his USP I'd think. Hopefully he'll be luckier this time round.

FKAS wrote:Any news on Will Evans for Quins?

He’s not a million miles away. Doing gym work on the leg and it’s coping pretty well apparently.

Epaminondas Pules wrote:

FKAS wrote:Any news on Will Evans for Quins?

He’s not a million miles away. Doing gym work on the leg and it’s coping pretty well apparently.

Good. A player I liked when he was at Tigers and he was great for Quins pre injury. Bit of an old school openside. Shame he was at Tigers at the wrong time for him.

Jack Willis: At times I felt like I’d had enough – but I wanted my son to see me play
Rehabilitation has been hard, but with the help of many – including a 20-stone prop – I’m ready to make my return

Jack Willis, Wasps and England flanker
Saturday February 19 2022, 12.01am, The Times


It has been 53 weeks since I severely damaged my left knee playing for England against Italy. Five minutes earlier had been one of the high moments of my life, scoring a try for my country at Twickenham and celebrating madly with Ellis Genge. Then Sebastian Negri, Italy’s flanker, clamped me around the torso and twisted me sideways out of a ruck. My knee buckled; the medial collateral ligament was ruptured, the posterior cruciate ligament was torn and the cartilage damaged. For weeks after my four-hour operation I was haunted by the sound.

It has been 53 weeks since I begged for pain relief on the turf at Twickenham, 53 weeks since I sat in the medical room, crying as I spoke to my girlfriend, Megan, and my parents. “I am so sorry it has happened again,” I said to them. I knew how bad it was because I had suffered a similar injury to my right knee in 2018, which ruled me out of England’s tour to South Africa.

Hand on heart, there have been times when I thought I would not make it back. There were times when I questioned whether I even wanted to make it back, days when I thought, “I am done with it now”.

But 53 weeks later here I am, back in the Wasps team for our trip to play Harlequins in the Gallagher Premiership and my mindset is so different. All that pain, anger, doubt and frustration has been replaced by a boyish energy and excitement. It is going to be special, even more so because my brother, Tom, is back playing too after a concussion lay-off. I am so ready to go.

Lee Blackett, my director of rugby at Wasps, pulled me to one side to let me know I would be on the bench. I said: “I want to play for as long as I possibly can.” He said: “Settle down, mate. You have been out for a long time, just get your head right, get out there and we’ll get you going.”

As I reflected over everything I have been through over the past 53 weeks, it stirred up a lot of emotions. What broke me early on was the everyday soreness. For months I wasn’t concerned about when I would play rugby again. I was more bothered about when I would be able to get out of bed without my knee killing me, when I could take my dog for a walk without my knee swelling up. I got over that stage of the recovery process but it can be incredibly frustrating. You push and push and push in training but do not see the returns that you want. Then I hit a brick wall.

The more you push, the more chance there is of the injury swelling. You are always trying to find that right balance and I had two significant flare-ups. After the first one, in September, I had my knee drained, I had a cortisone injection and they put Ostinol on the joint, which is a bit like WD-40.


After a really positive week of rehabilitation over in Dublin, I overdid it with my running, the swelling returned and I hit another brick wall. I just thought, “What is the point? I am not getting anywhere with this”.

My surgeon said to me that if it happened again I would need another operation to avoid long-term damage to my knee. That was when I was thinking, “Do I really want to do that? Do I really want to go back to the beginning?” That was in December — but that month was a massive turning point for me. I was trying to draw on every last ounce of motivation to keep going when my son, Enzo, arrived.

He distracted me straight away. Instead of getting home from training and fretting over how sore my knee was, I was straight into feeding and changing dirty nappies.

It gave me such a boost. It put my whole life into perspective. I wanted him to watch me play. I realised that I only had one shot at this career and I needed to hang on to it for as long as I could.

I slowed things down with my rehabilitation and threw away any recovery timetable. Just making it back on the field at all became the target. I went back to building up the core strength in my knee, went back to running in anti-gravity machines to reduce the impact and did everything to nullify the risk of swelling. It has worked. I have been back training with the boys now for three weeks and I am as confident as I can be in my knee and I have been working hard to get my mind right.

If I don’t jackal for the ball at a ruck when I come back, if I don’t do the things I used to do, then what is the point? I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t scared.

As I wrote in a previous column, my first real emotional meltdown came when Christophe Ridley, the RFU referee, came into our pre-season camp and explained the law changes for this season.

World Rugby has outlawed players from dropping their weight onto the lower limbs of an opponent but there was no mention of the crocodile roll technique that led to my injury.

I have not seen anyone get done for a crocodile roll since the laws changed. There’s still plenty happening — but I think I’ve prepared myself. I’ve had team-mates deliberately croc-rolling me in a fairly controlled way so that I’ve got the mechanisms, mentally and physically, to cope with it.

I asked Ben Harris, our 20-stone prop, to help me so he could replicate some of the bigger guys I will come up against. At first he would tell me which way he was going to roll and then we made it unpredictable.

It was a pretty nervy session but it has certainly built some confidence. I am in a better position physically than before I was injured because I worked so hard on my strength and power while I was out. I now need to play to build up that match fitness.

There’s a chance in every collision that you are going to get injured. I’ve got to get on with it and hope that I have paid my dues over the past 53 weeks. I just want to enjoy the next few months of my rugby and feel grateful for being out on the pitch again with the boys and with my brother; and to get a chance to play for Enzo.

I wanted to document my journey to give an insight into the other side of life as a professional athlete, when some of the toughest challenges you face are away from the spotlight.

Benches meant that Wasps put up a respectable scoreline and got a deserved LBP in the end

J Willis is back and he is HUNGRY

Will be really interesting to see who win/loses out in regular starts in the Wasps backrow. There has to be at least one England spot in there for somebody.

Mikey Brown wrote:Will be really interesting to see who win/loses out in regular starts in the Wasps backrow. There has to be at least one England spot in there for somebody.

Absolutely. T Willis was a bit flat in the first half (Wasps were under the kosh, so not much he could have done on his own) but he was on the rampage once he got the ball a bit in the 2nd. Would be perfectly happy to see him at England 8 in the future

He had some huge carries in the first half too. Immense player.

Yeah. I’ve said before that I think Tom Willis is probably England’s best option at 8 moving forward. Barbeary should focus on 6.

Scrumhead wrote:Yeah. I’ve said before that I think Tom Willis is probably England’s best option at 8 moving forward. Barbeary should focus on 6.

Why would you say Barbeary is better suited to 6 than TWillis?

Puja

All the focus was on big brother Jack, but Tom is used to that. In a losing cause and on his return from five weeks out with concussion, he made 102 metres from 21 carries, beat 11 defenders, scored an 18th try in his 53rd appearance and was Wasps’ joint top tackler.

Thats a pretty impressive return. jack gets the attention but Tom is consistently effective.

He did make about 50 of those metres completely sideways on one run, but he did it with a turn of pace I didn’t know he had.

I know I’ve said this before but I just don’t know how they keep everyone happy. Shields seems like he holds the Wasps pack together these days, Willis is consistently effective, and then J Willis/Barbeary will be wanting enough time to earn an England spot.

Eng backrow in the not too distant future:

Willis
Willis
Curry

Barbeary perfect benchman for impact and gamechange ability.

Beasties wrote:Eng backrow in the not too distant future:

Willis
Willis
Curry

Barbeary perfect benchman for impact and gamechange ability.

Did you... did you meant to put Curry at 8?

Lol, thought it was obv which positions they’d be in.

Beasties wrote:Lol, thought it was obv which positions they’d be in.

You say that, but.....

Puja wrote:

Scrumhead wrote:Yeah. I’ve said before that I think Tom Willis is probably England’s best option at 8 moving forward. Barbeary should focus on 6.

Why would you say Barbeary is better suited to 6 than TWillis?

Puja

Tom Willis is a specialist 8 and not a recent convert to the position.

Barbeary x-factor is his carrying. No reason he can’t do that from 6 while Tom Willis takes on the more specialised aspects of the 8 role like control at the base or positioning from a defensive POV. If they really wanted to, Wasps could always mix it up so that Barbeary packs down on attacking scrums in the 22 and Willis is there for any defensive scrums.

Scrumhead wrote:

Puja wrote:

Scrumhead wrote:Yeah. I’ve said before that I think Tom Willis is probably England’s best option at 8 moving forward. Barbeary should focus on 6.

Why would you say Barbeary is better suited to 6 than TWillis?

Puja

Tom Willis is a specialist 8 and not a recent convert to the position.

Barbeary x-factor is his carrying. No reason he can’t do that from 6 while Tom Willis takes on the more specialised aspects of the 8 role like control at the base or positioning from a defensive POV. If they really wanted to, Wasps could always mix it up so that Barbeary packs down on attacking scrums in the 22 and Willis is there for any defensive scrums.

Barbeary's hardly a recent convert, given almost all of his adult rugby has been played in the back row, mostly at 8.

My problem with Barbeary at 6 is that he wants to be the main carrier and, in order to get the best out of him, you want to give him the main carrying role. Technically speaking, there's no reason he can't do that from 6, but then you can't really have an 8 who also expects to be the main carrier, like Dombrandt or BillyV, so your 8 is going to have to take on some 6-ish duties, like Exeter do.

Puja

I actually quite like the idea of a Barbeary style right carrier alongside Dombrandt or Simmonds, but while they both do some good work on the ground etc. you’re right it’s a bit of a luxury.

I still wish he’d been developed as a hooker. Oh well.