Haskell right to quiz ref on Italy tactics – Young

WASPS boss Dai Young has defended his former skipper James Haskell who inadvertently was at the centre of the controversy surrounding Italy’s defeat by England last weekend.

The experienced flanker and his skipper Dylan Hartley politely questioned referee Romain Poite about England’s possible options to combat the Azurri’s blue-sky breakdown tactics.

Haskell was the immediate recipient of an amusing response from the French official, then subsequently a fair amount of mostly uninformed social media criticism suggesting he should not have needed Poite’s guidance.

The points of law raised by Italy’s refusal to create defensive rucks are far from straightforward, since they largely relate to the interpretation rather than the letter of the regulations. Young therefore believes the 73-times-capped flanker was doing exactly what he would want him to do should a similar situation arise in a Wasps match.

“A lot has been made of Hask questioning Romain Poite, but I don’t think he did anything wrong in wanting to clarify the situation,” Wasps’ boss said.

“I know Romain made a comment that made Hask look about 12, but I always tell my players to ask the ref about something if they are unsure. You may not agree with what he says, but at least you have clarified it, and in his eyes I’m sure that was all Hask was doing.”

The whole debate around Italy’s tactics had an interesting Wasps slant to it, since the same tactics were also seen pre-Christmas during the black-and-golds’ European Cup double-header with Toulouse.

After the French giants attempted to confuse Young’s team by backing off defensive rucks, they were given a dose of the own medicine by Nathan Hughes, whose subsequent steal set up a tryscoring position.

Young revealed that a lot of analysis and debate went into developing this tactic, and that England back row pair Hughes and Haskell would have both been party to these discussions.

“We watched Toulouse a number of weeks prior to the game, and we knew it was something they might use when we were trying to exit our own half,” he said.

“We said then that if we got an opportunity we would do exactly the same back to them, and talked a lot about what a ruck is and when there are offside lines so the players also knew when not to do it. “When you analyse teams, sometimes their Achilles heel is found in what they do to you. If you chuck one of their moves back at them sometimes they don’t cope that well, as you don’t practise defending your own moves. Toulouse tried to do it to us two or three times, but we worked on dragging them in and creating rucks or like England we picking and drove through the middle.” Italy’s boss Conor O’Shea has since advised that his team clarified their intentions with Poite pre-match, which Young confirmed to be standard practice. “You would mention to a referee beforehand if you were doing something different,” he said. “It gives them the chance to say ‘okay but if you’re going to do that then make sure A and B are in place.’ “It can also be a bit dangerous, as they may go next door and tell the opposition ‘this is what they’re going to be doing.’ But you’d be silly not to mention something like this, which is bound to spark debate, to the ref-

A lot has been made of Hask questioning Romain Poite, but I don’t think he did anything wrong in wanting to clarify the situation.

eree beforehand because he could blow your plans out of the water straight away.”

Young admired former Harlequins boss O’Shea’s tactical bravery, but believes the loophole in the offside law Italy were able to exploit will soon disappear.

“You have to give Conor O’Shea a lot of credit. It was really brave and could have gone horribly wrong,” he said.

“You can’t blame Italy for doing it. It’s within the laws but it doesn’t make a great spectacle and even though England eventually won comfortably enough, it is something that is tough to get around.

“If we saw a lot more of it, I’m sure from a spectacle point of view the law-makers would want to get rid of it as it’s not what people want to come and watch.

“We’re bringing things like bonus points into the game to encourage try scoring and keep people watching the game, and this sort of thing isn’t going to drag the fans in.”