'Tony Spreadbury was in with me last week... we're losing games by a point and every penalty counts'
Wasps boss Lee Blackett is hoping they can shake off their reputation as this season's most indisciplined Gallagher Premiership team and catch a Heineken Champions Cup break when they are refereed by a non-English official - Ireland's Frank Murphy - when they host Clermont on Saturday in the round of 16.
Blackett's side come into the Ricoh Arena tie having conceded 190 penalties in this season's Premiership, seven more than next-worst Sale and 28 more than league leagues Bristol. Worcester, the most disciplined side, have conceded only 126 penalties.
The malaise saw Wasps take remedial action last month by having referee Christophe Ridley in to take charge of their training ground matches, but they slipped back into back habits in last weekend's loss to Sale, conceding 14 penalties and losing for the seventh time in their last nine league matches.
It was also the fourth match in succession they lost at the Ricoh by six points or less, the margin of defeat being just a single point in their last two home games. It has left Blackett feeling on edge and still asking for guidance from the RFU on where his Wasps have been going wrong ahead of their Champions Cup tie. "You have got to be aware of what is going on out there," he said.
"Tony Spreadbury (the RFU referees boss) was in with me last week. Those conversations are happening all the time weekly and I have conversations with the referee that is refereeing the next game and also speaking to the referee we have just had previously. It's massive at the moment. We are losing games by a point, the last couple of home games by a point. There are such tight margins and every penalty counts and all we are trying to do is make ourselves squeaky clean in terms of that area."
Asked whether any patterns had emerged about specific areas of repeat offending, Blackett added: "We worked really hard defensively and we started in the last couple of weeks move away from giving defensive penalties away and then we had a bad one again at the weekend, so it's that constant reminder that it's every single week and we can't just put an emphasis on one area to fix ourselves up.
"It was a big penalty count. Sale had 16 so they were worse than us but we were not happy with 14. If you came and asked me a year ago it was always single figures and it was brilliant - 14 is a few too many but the game at the moment with the penalty issues there seems to be a higher penalty count consistently."
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Who got the benefits out of Schmidt, Lowe, Aki, and Gibson Park?
Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
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