Gopperth relishing Wasps’ forward thinking
Experienced Kiwi tells Daniel Schofield how the game has evolved here to bring everyone into play
When Jimmy Gopperth left New Zealand to join Newcastle in 2009, he was not just swapping hemispheres but rugby universes. Training, the fly-half was shocked to discover, was strictly segregated between forwards and backs.
“Some of the tight-five forwards would never touch the ball during a game, they were proud of that,” Gopperth says with a touch of awe.
In the intervening seven years a lot has changed. While the autumn internationals were presented as a triumph for the Six Nations sides who, with the exception of France, added a Rugby Championship scalp to their belts, it was, in fact, a victory for southern-hemisphere ideals and ideas.
All four Home Nations have an Antipodean head coach. So, too, the Lions. Playing with pace and width, once alien, distrusted concepts, are now integral to how all four teams attack. Gopperth argues a fundamental reason for such a shift has been the improvement in the pitches. “A few years ago, you played on a lot of bogs in the winter,” Gopperth said. “That does not increase the skill level, it drags the whole game down. Now teams are properly looking after their pitches in the winter and the games are speeding up as a result.” Even the Falcons, Gopperth’s old team, are now spreading their wings on Kingston Park’s artificial surface.
Yet no Premiership team have embraced this new-found spirit of adventure more wholeheartedly than Gopperth’s present employers, Wasps, who face Connacht today in the Champions Cup. At their irresistible best, Wasps tear through teams with the relish normally reserved for sixyear-olds opening Christmas presents. Players attack from all angles in a bewildering kaleidoscope of black and gold. “When we are firing it just looks effortless,” Gopperth said. “That’s what we need it to be.”
The greatest compliment that Gopperth can pay is that there is little to distinguish the freedom with which Wasps play compared to the Super Rugby teams he represented. “Definitely,” Gopperth said. “That is in the way we train and the way we play the game. It is playing what we see.
“Having the structure but then having the ability to spot opportunities and not just go through phases for the sake of going through phases. That’s a classic trap northern hemisphere sides get caught doing.
“It is having a shape and people in the right positions but then having the ability to call something that’s on that may not have been called in the first few phases. It might be a call to tell people to do something but then you see a different opportunity and it is having that ability to scan and have a look what the defence is doing and then adapt your play.”
In Wasps’ system that is largely contingent upon the role of two playmakers at 10 and 12 – or first and second fifth-eighth to use the Kiwi parlance – whether those are filled by Danny Cipriani, Kyle Eastmond, Kurtley Beale or Gopperth, who has largely played at inside centre this season and occasionally at full-back.
“Wherever we have played him he has been picking up man of the match awards,” Dai Young, the Wasps director of rugby, said. “I knew he wouldn’t let us down playing there but I was a little surprised how well he has played in those areas. He has probably been our best back this season.”
With the fly-half focused on the ball, it is the inside centre’s duty to scan for dog-legs or potential mismatches. In training, a Wasps coach will randomly select a player in the defensive line to lie down, requiring the attacking team to spot and exploit the subsequent hole.
“Having that second pair of eyes takes a lot of pressure off the fly-half because he has got so much going on, if you can talk and get that pressure off him that really helps,” Gopperth said. “I enjoy the freedom of having a look to see what’s on and create opportunities. I have been lucky enough to finish a couple.”
The final part of the equation involves the tight-five forwards that Gopperth referenced at the start. It remains the area where Gopperth feels that New Zealand will have the edge over the Lions next summer from Dane Cole’s line breaks to Brodie Retallick’s offloading. However, ballhandling is no longer seen in the northern hemisphere as an additional bonus but, in Wasps’ system, at least it is a prerequisite.
“If we want to attack how our coaches want us to then everyone has to play their part, there can’t be any passengers,” Gopperth said. “We want all of our guys to catch and pass and that’s what we are trying to work on as a squad, not just the backs. So we try to do it collectively in training so there is not a backs v forwards split.
“That means taking people out of their comfort zones. It is getting the tight five out in the wide channels. Doing each attack with the tight five and telling them to make passes. We play these little two v threes and four v threes games. That’s where a lot of our work comes from playing what you call conditioning games where you are getting a blow on but you are getting more touches. You are getting the tight five making passes and offloads. It is just getting them comfortable on the ball. That’s the main thing. Once you do that then everything else clicks into place.”