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Dai Young laments Wasps' collapse in front of 24,000 at the Ricoh
By Online Editors
Wasps director of rugby Dai Young was bitterly disappointed to lose 28-22 to Harlequins after seeing his side throw away a 17-point lead.
In front of a crowd of over 24,000 at the Ricoh Arena, Wasps looked in total control when they built up a 17-0 advantage in the first quarter but then conceded 28 unanswered points to gift their opponents victory.
Wasps’ tries came from Jack Willis, Zach Kibirige and Thomas Young with Jacob Umaga kicking two conversions and a penalty.
Quins responded with tries from James Chisholm, Kyle Sinckler, Elia Elia and Marcus Smith, who converted all four for a tally of 13 points.
Young said: “For the first period, I thought we were excellent as we were really dominant in all facets. We were very physical and won five turn-overs and when you go 17 points up, you think it’s probably job done.
“They then scored a soft try and the intensity went completely from our game. We struggled to get it back and it took us until 14 minutes from the end to spark it up again.
“It’s hugely disappointing as we lost all the collisions when Quins started to chase the game and the belief then started to drain from our players as their heads drop too easily when you should dust yourself down and come back strongly.
“It was a fantastic crowd and a fantastic occasion but the biggest emotion I have is letting the supporters down and we have to do better.”
It was a different story for Quins director of rugby Paul Gustard, who was elated to come away with a bonus-point victory.
He said: “It was a game of three-quarters for in the first quarter we were extremely poor as we regularly lost possession and dropped off tackles to concede 17 soft points.
“For the next 40 minutes, it was one-way traffic as our set-piece was on top throughout but then the final eight or nine minutes saw us nearly manage to grab defeat from the jaws of victory.
“We were under the cosh but fortunately Elia Elia managed to rip the ball from a maul at the end to save us.
“I thought our back row were excellent as last week at Ulster we were bullied and centre Paul Lasike also made a vital contribution as he gave us momentum.
“Marcus (Smith) kicked well to give us field position and to come away with a bonus-point win is a good leg up for the team.”
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In another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
Go to commentsBens got a crush on KLA. So cute.
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