>> Nick Cain comment
Young must get Brookes back to Test match fitness
WASPS are the Premiership’s great entertainers, but they are struggling to get over the line when it comes to winning trophies. It must be like having an itch you can’t scratch for a side that have played the best attacking rugby in the English league for the last three seasons.
However, the ‘Nearly Men’ tag is starting to apply to Wasps in the same way that it did to Northampton before they eventually won the Premiership title for the first time in 2014.
Irrespective of Wasps having a more illustrious past than Saints in terms of silverware, having won the English club title five times in the pro era – the last of them in 2008 – as well as the European Cup twice (2004, 2007), to Northampton’s once (2000), a decade is a long time between peaks for a club of their calibre.
Wasps have not found it easy since the golden era when Lawrence Dallaglio, Simon Shaw and Fraser Waters inspired them to reach the heights. Since then they have had to weather not just dodging relegation by a whisker six years ago, but also surviving the biggest series of relocations undertaken by an elite English club in the pro era.
Before moving to the Ricoh Stadium in Coventry three years ago after owner/chairman Derek Richardson took a controlling interest in the club, they had already had new homes in High Wycombe and Shepherd’s Bush.
Helping to save the club from relegation has meant that rugby director Dai Young has plenty of credit in the bank as far as Wasps supporters are concerned. The move to the Ricoh – with the club purchasing the ground and its casino and hotel complex outright at the end of 2014 – has ensured they have also had credit in the bank to buy marquee players.
Richardson has not tied Young’s hands, despite persistent reports from independent experts that Wasps will have difficulty repaying the £35 million retail bond scheme launched three years ago, which is due to generate a 6.5 per cent annual interest plus a money-back return to public investors in 2022. There were also suggestions at the end of last season that the players were unimpressed by the basic standard of the training facilities available to them at Broadstreet RFC despite being promised state-of-the-art training facilities before the move to Coventry.
When it comes to value for money on their marquee signings, Wasps have paid top dollar without yet getting the big pay-off they are chasing. The Wallaby play-maker Kurtley Beale helped to spearhead their 2017 Premiership assault, with Wasps pipped 23-20 by Exeter after an epic final, but their attempts last season to go one better were hobbled by the lack of front five power that Young has been unable to fix despite it being exposed by the Chiefs.
Yet, the flair in their backline, with outgoing fly-half Danny Cipriani developing a slick partnership with scrum-half Dan Robson and evergreen centre Jimmy Gopperth, not only made them box office but also put them in play-off contention again.
By capitalising on the strike power out wide provided by Willie Le Roux, Elliot Daly, Gabi Lovobalavu, Christian Wade and Josh Bassett, there was never a dull moment with Wasps.
However, just as in 2016 when they lost to Exeter in the semifinals, Saracens proved too powerful for Wasps up front, and eased to a 57-33 victory at Allianz Park before going on to take the title back off Exeter at Twickenham.
It was not the first time that Wasps have come a cropper at the hands of Saracens, a team they held the whip hand over in the amateur era. Two seasons ago when Saracens were en route to their first European Cup title they had too much forward clout for Wasps in the semi-final at the Madejski Stadium, winning 24-9.
Having felt shortchanged by finishing his nine-year stint with Cardiff Blues with a European Challenge Cup title (2010) and an Anglo-Welsh Cup win (2009), Young has delved into the coffers again in an attempt to strengthen this Wasps squad so that the big prizes are within reach this season.
Big-name Kiwi imports have dominated the news with the former Hurricanes captain Brad Shields – just capped by England at blindside/lock against South Africa – arriving with Lima Sopoaga, the All Black and the Highlanders flyhalf.
Making a return to the Ricoh after an impressive three month stint last season is another international, the Springbok back rower Nizaam Carr. With Le Roux also still on the roster Wasps do not lack overseas players who are in their prime rather than looking for Premiership pensions.
The other bonus is that all three are expected to arrive after a short break at the end of Super Rugby to be with the club a fortnight before the start of the season. Having them present from the outset rather than drip-fed into the squad over the first few months of the new campaign should benefit Wasps.
The only potential downside is Cipriani leaving for Gloucester, and another club stalwart, former captain James Haskell, being forced to find gainful employment at Northampton after finding himself surplus to requirements.
Le Roux’s double play-maker partnership with Cipriani was a key component in Wasps attacking with such a combination of pizzazz and precision last season – and it will be important the Springbok full-back strikes similar sparks with Sopoaga.
This is the sort of challenge that Lee Blackett appears to thrive on. At 35, the Wasps backs coach has a growing reputation as one of the sharpest attacking minds in the European game, and his ability to bring the disparate parts of his backline together so effectively since he joined the club tells us why.
South Africa coach Rassie Erasmus spoke during the recent series against England about how much Le Roux had benefited from his time at Wasps, and playing alongside Cipriani, especially in terms of timing of the pass. Blackett also deserves some of the plaudits.
Le Roux’s subsequent transformation from a brilliant but harum-scarum counter attacker who often cost his side as many points as he score – into a full-back who is a second distributor carving out space and scoring opportunities for others has been a revelation. When it is combined with his own lethal strike running it catapults him into David Campese territory – and there could be no greater accolade for the South African.
Given the ability of Le Roux to shred even the best defences, the most important talk facing Young is to ensure that the Wasps set-piece is not just fit for purpose, but powerful enough to give teams like Saracens and Exeter domestically, and Leinn ster and Toulouse in their European Cup pool, a splitting headache. That way Sopoaga, right,
“Last season’s bid was hobbled by a lack of front five power that Young’s been unable to fix”
“Brookes must get back to Test fitness if he is to help transform pack into a battering ram”
can set Le Roux, Wade and company free to terrorise defences.
The other strategic move made by Young has been the acquisition of two big Championship centres who can break the gain-line, the unorthodox Bedford import Michael Le Bourgeois, and Ross Neal from London Scottish, who at a Matt Banahan-like 6ft 5ins will give midfield defences pause for thought.
However, any Wasps stock-take going into the new campaign also has to ask why the right side of the scrum has been a problem for the past three seasons despite a tight-head as formidable as Young was for Wales and the Lions calling the shots.
Although Jake Cooper-Woolley was solid, and also durable, playing throughout last season, back-up tightheads Marty Moore and Paul Doran-Jones were often under the cosh – and the bigger the game the more exposed they were.
Against the likes of Exeter, who have three international tightheads (Harry Williams, Tomas Francis, Greg Holmes) and Saracens, who have two (Vincent Koch, Juan Figallo), that leaves you on the back foot at the scrum and line-out drive. Wasps have attempted to address this by signing Kieran Brookes from Northampton, with the 16cap England prop, who last played Test rugby in 2016, weighing in at just under 20 stone (125kg) compared to CooperWoolley’s 18 stone (115kg). However, Brookes – who has already had stints at Newcastle and Leicester – is going to have to make more of an impression at the Ricoh than he did in his three seasons at Franklin’s Gardens, where he was part of an underperforming pack. Despite his international pedigree, he was not the Saints automatic first choice tight-head, with injuries and fluctuations in form playing their part.
Brookes is a bigger man than Moore or Doran-Jones, but Wasps require the 27-year-old to be a consistent driving force as a scrummager and as a carrier – and that means he will have to get back to Test level fitness if he is going to help to transform the Wasps tightfive into a battering ram unit.
Young has also gone for bulk at loose-head by signing Georgian international Zurab Zhvania from Stade Francais. Zhvania, who has played 34 times for Georgia, and can also play hooker, is the same weight as Brookes despite being a couple of inches shorter.
One of the existing tight five who will be looking to make a breakthrough alongside Joe Launchbury, and has the physical credentials to do so, is lock Will Rowlands. Wasps have a number of mobile lightheavyweight locks, like Kearnan Myall and James Gaskell, and while Rowlands is no slouch he is more heavy-duty, at 6ft 6ins and 18st 5lbs (117kg), and can help to bring more power and ballast in the set piece and the loose. Wasps have plenty of back row options, with Thomas Young one of the best attacking opensides in Europe, but like their backs, they will only flourish if the tight-five makes big improvements.
Carr will put pressure on England No.8 Nathan Hughes to raise the bar in terms of fitness, and Shields will slot straight into the gap left at blindside by the departure of Haskell and the injury to Alex Rieder.
However, the decision to let an inspirational operator like Guy Thompson go to Leicester looks like an error, especially with young poacher Jack Willis out for most of the season recovering from knee surgery.
Young has covered the back row bases by bringing in a couple of Championship flankers, with openside Joe Atkinson arriving from London Scottish alongside Nottingham blindside Ben Morris – but they will have to excel to match Thompson’s contribution at Wasps.
Wasps will not lack firepower this season, but it is whether they have enough of it in the front five that will be the decisive factor in them winning silverware again.