Luckless Gloucester are still tough – insists Lee
WASPS boss Lee Blackett claimed tomorrow’s opponents Gloucester are bottom of the league when it comes to luck – as well as for points gained so far this term.
The Cherry and Whites have won only twice all season, one of which was the reverse fixture at Kingsholm in round two when former Wasps lock George Skivington led his side to 40-22 victory.
But Gloucester’s season since had been a succession of near misses until they ended their long search for a win last time out against Worcester Warriors.
“If you look at them recently, they’re the most unlucky team in the league. You have to watch the amount of games they’ve played and think with a few minutes to go they’ve just struggled to see out games. They saw the one out at the weekend.”
Once more there will be no reunion with Danny Cipriani, who left Wasps in 2018 to join Gloucester. The maverick fly-half missed both the 2020 clashes between the two sides at the Ricoh Arena as well as their meeting earlier this season.
He subsequently left the club as Gloucester found their feet without their main play-maker.
Blackett added: “They’ve got some good threats and some pretty good structures.
“They’ve got some younger guys coming through the ranks, they’ve lost a few South Africans in the summer and a couple of other players. I think they’re in a building phase, but, you see with this league, we will have to turn up, there’s no doubt about it. Otherwise you get beat in this competition. It’s so tight.
“Gloucester are down there, [but] they’re putting in some good performances and as we saw at the weekend, games can go either way right at the death. We were on the line at the weekend and we’re talking about how we’re turning a corner if we all of a sudden score at the end. “We know how tough it is going to be. The big focus I’ve always said and I’ll keep reiterating is us. I’d rather spend 95 per cent of the time discussing us, not the opposition, and discussing how we’re going to get better.”
Wasps’ run of one win in five games and three successive home league defeats for the first time at the Ricoh Arena has cut the gap between themselves and bottom club Gloucester
to just four positions and 10 points. Their most recent loss was the 16-10 home reverse to London Irish.
“There was a lot of effort out there at the weekend,” said Blackett. “We were poor against Leicester the week before even in terms of that, but I thought against Irish at the weekend there was a lot of intent.
“There were a lot of people going off on their own tangent and trying to make it happen, because they’re wanting to make it happen desperately.
“I think we’ve just got to trust ourselves, trust the team, trust everyone around you. Defensively we’re good. Our shape is good, our structures are good, and then we give penalties away. When they keep the ball for eight to ten phases, our defence looks fully in control. We’ve not conceded a try this year in the Premiership post six phases.
“We’re a team that’s structurally good. We just need to keep our discipline.”
We will have to turn up, there’s no doubt about it. Otherwise you get beat in this competition. It’s so tight.
Lee Blackett
Brathwaite gives us great options because he can bowl and he has that real power to clear the ropes.
Mark Robinson
MARK Robinson believes the signing of Carlos Brathwaite for the 2021 Vitality Blast means the Birmingham Bears’ squad is starting to look capable of delivering “something special.”
The West Indies’ star will bring his explosive all-round skills to Edgbaston and make his Blast debut in the opening game away to Yorkshire on June 10.
Also making his T20 bow for the Bears will be spinner Danny Briggs, the top wicket-taker in Blast history.
Robinson is excited by the prospect of having such powerhouse acquisitions alongside precocious, young home-grown talent, such as Henry Brookes, Rob Yates and Dan Mousley.
“You can’t beat experience, especially in T20,” said the new first-team coach. “It started off being thought of as a young man’s game but it’s become clear that seniority and experience, especially under pressure, really counts when you are playing in front of full houses.
“It’s very exciting for us to have people like Brathwaite and Briggs, who have been there and done it at the top level. They know how to win.
“Brathwaite gives us great options because he can bowl and he has that real power to clear the ropes at the back end of an innings, which is invaluable in any team.
“He is also a big personality and that will be infectious for the dressing room and the crowd and create
excitement and fun, which is what T20 is all about. You want people to come to the ground with a smile on their face and leave with one.
“With Brathwaite, Briggs and Tim Bresnan, we have players who have won trophies. Then we have the likes of Adam Hose and Rob Yates, who want to build on the success they had last summer, and some really good younger players to give that energy and excitement. Henry Brookes is only 21 and even Sam Hain is only 25 and the captain [Will Rhodes] is 26.
“You want competition in the
squad and we have that. You could say we are a tad young but I find that exciting and it was very encouraging to see the young players respond so well to pressure situations in the last few games last season.
“We have that nice balance now and, with a top-class finger-spinner, Danny Briggs, and also a wrist-spinner, Jake Lintott, and a bit of pace with Henry and hopefully Olly Stone and, suddenly, you’re thinking you might have a good chance of doing something special.”
Paul Farbrace, the Bears’ director of cricket, says Brathwaite is the “perfect fit” on and off the field.
Farbrace knows first-hand about the spectacular batting powers the new Bear possesses – he was in the England coaching set-up when Brathwaite smashed Ben Stokes for four sixes to clinch the World T20 for West Indies at Eden Gardens in 2016.
Those batting powers on the Bears’ behalf will be very welcome this year but, insists Farbrace, Brathwaite’s influence will also be much broader.
“Carlos is the perfect fit for us,” he said. “He is a dynamic cricketer, who has won games and trophies on the biggest stages and expects to win. He is a fantastic addition to our squad, on and off the field.
“We all know what he can do with the bat and ball and that he is a true match-winner, but he can also turn matches for us in other ways.
“In T20, nobody comes off with bat and ball all the time, but what a player like Carlos can do every time is influence games with his knowledge and experience, whether it’s a chat in the field or a word to a new batsman from the non-striker’s end.
“We have got some fantastic young cricketers coming into the squad now and Carlos will be brilliant for them. He is a guy who plays his cricket hard and well, but with a sense of fun.
“As soon as the members meet him they will see what a relaxed guy he is, great to be around and great to learn from, and that makes him just perfect for us. I’m really excited about us getting him and about our prospects as a team in the Blast this year.”
I spent two-and-ahalf hours trying to avoid getting out to a straight ball, then I ended up getting out to a straight ball. Ben Stokes
BEN Stokes admitted England fell 100 runs short of expectations on the first day of the series decider against India following another chastening encounter with spin in Ahmedabad.
The tourists had the chance to banish the memories of their two-day defeat at the same venue last week, winning the toss and finding batting conditions to be less extreme than they had expected.
Although the ball was not fizzing and turning or skidding unpredictably off the pitch, Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel still found a way to run through the order, sharing seven more wickets as England were dismissed for 205.
India had time to reach 24 for one in reply but Stokes, who top-scored with 55, was honest enough to accept an opportunity had slipped through his side’s fingers.
“We should still be batting,” was his succinct summary. “I think we’ll look back on that and be disappointed by some of the batting. We’re more than capable of scoring more than 300 on a wicket like that out here, it’s frustrating.
“We sit down as a group and say we’ll try to put it (the previous game) behind us but that’s easier said than done. I know, overall, it’s a much better wicket than the last one we played on so we’re just disappointed not to still be batting.
“I feel very frustrated that I spent two-and-a-half hours trying to avoid getting out to a straight ball, then I ended up getting out to a straight ball.”
Stokes had plenty on his mind at
the time. Not only had he emerged as his side’s leading light with the bat, he had been battling the symptoms of a stomach bug and was also pencilled in to open the bowling after a selection gamble left England with James
Anderson as a lone frontline paceman.
He was clearly feeling under the weather and was worryingly noncommittal about his prospects of reaching 100 per cent in the coming days. “I’ll just have to wait and see, [and take it] day by day,” was the best he could offer.
Stokes was part of the decisionmaking group which hashed out England’s surprising team sheet, which included Dan Lawrence as a specialist batsman at number seven and hinted at plenty of work for 38-yearold Anderson, and painted it a logical consequence of their previous defeat rather than a drastic reaction.
“I think if you look at the scorecard from the last Test it will probably give you all the answers you need,” he said.
“Lengthening the batting line-up was something we took away from the last match, having that extra batter in case we are facing similar conditions. We felt seam isn’t going to offer as much in terms of being a threat, it’s more of a holding role.”
Stokes also sought to suck any drama out of an early exchange of words with home captain Virat Kohli.
“It’s two professionals showing they care about the sport they love,” he said. “A lot gets said these days when two guys seem to come to words out in the middle. There was completely nothing untoward, just two blokes who care about what they do and two guys who definitely don’t back down.”
COVENTRY City could confirm their Ricoh Arena return as soon as today.
According to reports yesterday, the Sky Blues were ‘edging closer’ to an agreement that is ‘all but agreed’ with the stadium’s owners, Arena Coventry Limited (ACL), about a return to the city.
The matter was due to be discussed at an EFL meeting yesterday.
Mark Robins’ side have been playing games away from the Ricoh since the start of the 2019-20 season, groundsharing with Championship rivals Birmingham City.
The club have been in dispute with ACL since 2019 and played their most recent game in Coventry in May of that year.
The Coventry Telegraph understands the deal will be a ten-year agreement, guaranteed for a minimum of seven years.
There is expected to be a break clause to allow the football club to move to its proposed new stadium, which the club hope to build at the University of Warwick site.
The Coventry Telegraph also understands that, commercially, this will be the best deal the football club have ever had in terms of revenue streams from food and beverages and car parking in all their time at the Ricoh Arena – that having been a contentious issue in previous negotiations with the stadium owners.
Wasps, meanwhile, are understood to have put aside the issue of the Sky Blues’ complaint to the European Commission over the sale of the Ricoh Arena – a major stumbling block in previous negotiations to return to the stadium – in order to get a deal done.
It’s understood the complaint is still on-going at the European Commission.
The Sky Blues were set to inform the EFL at a board meeting yesterday where they intend to play next season and provide details of who will have ‘primacy of fixtures,’ which means priority over when matches are played between the football club and Premiership rugby club. The EFL initially said the Sky Blues could play outside the city of Coventry for up to three years and insisted upon regular updates from the football club about the state of play regarding a possible return. Any agreement is expected to be for the start of next season. There’s no suggestion that the Sky Blues will be back at the Ricoh before the end of the current campaign, which has just five ‘home’ games left to play.
Speaking in February, Sky Blues chief executive Dave Boddy spoke about how bringing the club back to Coventry remains a priority.
“One of my main objectives still remains to try and bring the football club back to the Ricoh Arena,” he said.
“As we have previously stated, we cannot discuss the matter publicly due to non-disclosure agreements that both ourselves and Wasps have signed, but alongside the aspirations of the ownership to build a new stadium at the University of Warwick, in the short-term this remains a priority to me.
“We will continue to work hard to try and drive the football club forward and achieve both our short and longer-term goals.
“This is a fantastic club that has made much progress over recent years and there are hopefully further great times ahead for us all to enjoy. Thank you for your support.”
One of my main objectives still remains to try and bring the football club back to the Ricoh Arena. Dave Boddy