Chiefs v Wasps Review

I hadn't been to SP until today as I was away for the friendlies and A game and it felt to me there was an air of nervousness rather than expectation in the air today.

 Thankfully after some early nerves the chiefs showed in patches the form they showed at the end of last season.
The crowd made a reasonable amount of noise for around 7000..perhaps the double header tomorrow impacted on the attendance.

 The early nerves manifest themselves in errors which resulted in wasps going 6 0 up. Captain Mumm led from the front and secured excellent restart ball today but on occasion his enthusiasm led to a penalty or two...

 The new scrum laws will take some getting used to if today is anything to go by....although it felt like mr fox was being a bit fussy....certainly we seemed to spend as much time waiting for scrums to be reset and sorted as we did last season...hopefully this will improve

 Well we did get back into the game with some excellent Steenson kicking and a cracking Tom James try...and the relief/pleasure of the lads was evident.

 perhaps I'm being harsh but it still felt as if some of the chiefs players were a little bit off the pace....thankfully wasps appeared to be in similar place..

 Ashley Johnson was sin binned 6 minutes before half time for a straight arm high tackle on Haydn Thomas...wasps did well not to lose many points whilst down to 14...and Haydn Thomas was later subbed after a second clattering of the day....would be interested to see it again as I'm not sure there was a proper attempt at the tackle rather a barge..
in any event chiefs looked lively after half time and Haydn Thomas displayed great awareness and composure after a good kick ahead by Dollman and subsequent loss of the ball by Wade, to pick out a great pass to Scays who scored....things were really looking up for Chiefs

 Then highlight of the match, for me, a great step and then burst of speed followed by great awareness to keep away  from the defence over 50 metres by Tom James - pure quality.

 James could well have won man of the match, but TJs MOM was a fair one given how well he led and invigorated the rest of the team....he did not stop and time after time sprinted across as a cover defender when chiefs looked stretched..he looked to be back to his best to me 

 David ewers continues to develop well albeit he crabbed sideways on a couple of occasions when he may have straightened earlier....certainly when he does straighten he makes some great big holes !

 It was good to see Jack Yeandle get up when he looked to have damaged his knee.....we could do without another injured hooker..

 And so to about 8 minutes from time when Chiefs had an overlap and perhaps white line fever meant a player (welch?) got in the way of a pass that was going outside him for a likely try bonus point....and the chance was gone...ok we are only 2 games in but every BP is going to count..

 Overall things felt positive and we are moving in the right direction....a loss today would have been very bad news..that said the pack needs to continue its development Baxter and Hayes are certainly missed in doing some of the selfless hidden work...I hope sturge is ok, for a player of his quality he had a fairly quiet game

 So next to Irish who are in a very similar position to chiefs....it won't have escaped RBs notice we have shipped more points than any other team...the defence will definately need to improve......but the line out was at least better today - mainly Down to TJ

 I look forward to sireli, sky walker and jack Nowell competing for places and creating gaps for the mercurial Tom James 
I wouldn't suggest either wasps try to be worthy of away team try of the season, but if you think so then please update the sticky