Young after a no-nonsense approach to put Wasps on the right track
DAI Young has called for some ‘hardnosed professionalism’ from his Wasps side after a concerning start to the 2019/20 season.
A return of one win and just five points from their opening four Gallagher Premiership games has left the Ricoh Arena club only a point and place above bottom club Leicester Tigers heading into the break for European action.
“I’d rather be in a different position, I’d be a liar if I said anything different to that,” said Young. “Most people coming into the season, I read a couple of predictions early doors, that we would probably win our two home games and not get much out of our two away games. We’re one game away from what most people would’ve thought and I don’t really feel we’ve been outplayed in any game we’ve played.
“We should have more points on the board, that’s the frustrating thing for me.”
Back-to-back defeats were suffered against London Irish and Gloucester before a first win was secured against Bath. However Wasps failed to build on the momentum of that 30-22 victory as they lost 28-18 to Sale Sharks last time out – a match where the Black and Golds conceded 19 penalties and lost Paolo Odogwu to a late red card.
“I sound a little bit of a stuck record, but a couple of lapses in the games are taking games away from us which is really frustrating,” he added. “If we were getting well beat, if there’s games where we are coming second best, you’ll take that on the chin. London Irish we should’ve won, we beat Bath at home, we were in the game against Gloucester for big parts and then a couple of defensive lapses took that game away.
“And similar at the weekend, we should’ve at least come away with a losing bonus point.
“That hard-nosed professionalism is what we’ve got to get. Nothing is 100 per cent where we want it to be, but we’re not a million miles from it.
“When there’s a point there to be taken, we’ve got to be taking those points.”
I don’t really feel we’ve been outplayed in any game we’ve played. We should have more points on the board.
Focusing on the loss at the AJ Bell Stadium, Young condemned his side for the amount of penalties conceded but pointed out it wasn’t typical of Wasps’ season so far.
“It was totally unacceptable, 19 penalties is a bit of a disgrace,” he said.
“If you look at the other three games we’ve gone eight, 11, eight, our KPI [key performance indicator] for penalties is 10. Bath, although we seemed to give a lot of penalties away we didn’t actually give a lot of penalties away, we gave a lot of penalties away in the wrong areas which kept the scoreboard ticking over for them. Previously, we’d only not reached our KPI one in the four games, which was 11 and just the other side. Penalties, although have been costly in terms of keeping teams in [games], it hasn’t been a substantial comedown from last season, although 19 on the week is embarrassing. We’re not going to win any game.
“We were lucky he didn’t have his kicking boots on, if he had his kicking boots on we would’ve been out of sight.
“Having said that we could’ve come away with a losing bonus point and we would’ve been happy with that.”