Wasps vs Bath

Courtesy of a free ticket organised by HoundofHarrow I managed to watch my 5th (and 1st not on TV) rugby match of the weekend out at Wycombe where Wasps narrowly edged out Bath 27-24. This was my 2nd time attending an English Premiership match, but my 1st at an English club ground. I went to the St Georges day match at Twickenham a couple of years back, and I've been to HEC, Amlin and Anglo-Welsh Cup matches involving English teams at Twickenham, Wembley, Millennium and Cardiff City over the past few years.

Wasps were marginally the better side, but had the referee not made a howler in the 1st half to deny Bath a try Bath might have snatched a win. The Bath player clearly (I was behind the posts at that end) reached over and grounded the ball before it bobbled away and the ref called a knock-on in goal.

It was a pretty good day out overall and I dare say I'll be going back.

Some random thoughts from the match (note, all based on my impressions, no doubt there will be some stats out there proving me wrong )
- Christian Wade for Wasps is definitely one to watch, scored a very good try.
- I don't know what the crowd figures were, but there weren't many obvious gaps so it seemed a fair turnout.
- Bath's handling skills on a dry, warmish (if a bit windy) day were somewhat disappointing, and cost them dear in the 2nd half when they were running into the wind.
- Goal kicking on a windy day was pretty good.
- One-off runners for both sides were able to get over the gain line and make a metre or so fairly comfortably on most occasions - but they rarely made more ground than that.
- At the breakdown neither side showed much enterprise, allowing the attacking team to recycle the ball fairly easily. There were very few penalties awarded at the breakdown, though quite a few for off-side play.
- overall the skill levels reminded me of a mid-table NPC match in NZ - better kicking, worse ball handling and less enterprise at the break-down.

Interesting observations Kiwi, particularly about relative skill levels with the NPC. I think the styles of play of the teams in the two competitions are probably markedly different, which may explain the disparity between kicking and handling skills.

In relation to Wade, he looks a pretty good attacking prospect at present. I will reserve judgement completely until I see him inthe middle of winter on a bog of a pitch getting an aerial bombardment whislt it's chucking down.

Cheers kiwi -not the best game but I'm glad you'll consider returning.

Ozzy - Wade is not involved with the 7s so he will feature over the winter. The pitches are a lot better these days. We don't see many mudbaths. I believe even Edgely Park is playable thesr days.

Depends if you've already ordered the Pizzas or not whether it's playable hound


My point about Wade was more about wanting to see his defence tested to be honest. he is undoubtedly an attacking threat. He has gas and is elusive, so will always score tries, but so is Tom Varndell and for me his weaknesses outweigh his strengths a tthe very top (international) level.

I doubt either will play for England at XVs (again in Varndell's case), but Wade's experience in a damn good U20s squad, and in 7s over the last two seasons, would give him the edge if you were a selector. The defensive side of 7s has become much more important since Varndell played 8 or so years back.

Wade does his job there from what I've seen.

I was at the game as well, wasn't a fan of Small reffing the game when I heard who it was, and unfortunately wasn't pleasantly surprised either. Sat next to the coaches so couldn't see whether that ball was grounded Kiwi, but maybe the ref heard Dai Young shout at him and just did what he was told. I swear, that man's voice could reduce the A Team to a bunch of terrified school girls.

But otherwise was an enjoyable game to watch, was the only game I have seen so far that our scrum hasn't been taken apart so we weren't just playing off scraps. I did see Wade get turned inside out by Biggs quite easily but he is only young and should be able to get his positioning sorted out.

On another note Chris Bell is is a complete animal in the tackle, he was eating back row forwards for his Sunday lunch. Haven't seen too much of him in attack though, Hound, what do you think of him going forward?

One thing I cannot wait for is for Wasps to get a new Stadium, I used to live near Henley, so it wasn't a long way to travel, but High Wycombe is in the middle of nowhere, the stadium is miles away from the station and I now live in Clapham so it takes me bl00dy ages to get there! I also made the mistake of forgetting to bring cash and so had to trek the mile back to the local offy to get to a cash machine and pay for the pleasure of being solvent. Please come back to London!!! Apparently there is some land for sale in Battersea, would be ideal, right next to the Junction so easy to get to and there are lots of cash machines nearby. Easy.