Wasps go to Dublin with tails up

Editor 15 Oct 2008 12:43 PM

London Wasps put their stuttering start to their domestic programme firmly behind them with a 25-11 over Castres Olympique last weekend, and now have a chance to prove their point a little more firmly when they travel to Dublin to take on Magners League champions Leinster on Saturday.

After a six-week spell in which they lost five matches, culminating in the training-ground dust-up between Josh Lewsey and Danny Cipriani, Wasps were facing a fall in stock uncannily similar to the juddering halt the world economy has come to.

The win against Castres has given them a bail-out for now. But the road to full recovery takes a decisive turn in Dublin on Saturday; only then will the true measure of this Wasps team be gauged, against a Leinster side that was in glittering form at times against Edinburgh.

“Leinster are playing very well,” said Wasps Director of Rugby Ian McGeechan.

“They have got a very strong side and, as we found in the Heineken Cup last year, there is very little between teams. The challenge of this competition now is very strong.

“However, all in all I was really pleased with the performance against Castres. I thought we started well and we went back to doing a lot of the things we do well and that showed. It was a good defensive performance and offensively we were very slick. We wanted to keep the tempo up and Castres wanted to slow the tempo down.

“RaphaÃ«l (IbaÃ±ez) said that the experienced players had to take a lead and show up for real and I thought all of them did. All our experienced players delivered big time.

“It was obvious that it meant a lot to everybody. Honesty has been what this club is about and I think the honesty came out. The most pleasing thing is that, without any real histrionics or fireworks, we got into good positions just out of very good, hard work. There was a lot of work went in and we got the benefits.”

Wasps have won their only Heineken Cup clash with Leinster so far, a 35-13 quarter-final victory in the 2006/07 tournament, and IbaÃ±ez is banking on maintaining the momentum gathered against Castres.

“We realise as a team and a group of players that we are heading in the right direction and that's what I want to take from this game into the next one on Saturday,” he said.

“It was a big ask at the beginning of the week and I was really pleased with the reaction, not only from the experienced players but from the team.

“We played as a team and, in certain moments in the first half, we were back to what we're really good at – running the ball and creating havoc in their defence. That's exactly what we're looking for. It was a good win for us.”

Coach Shaun Edwards, so often accredited for Wasps' tight defence in previous seasons, had plenty to say on the sunject of Wasps' attack this time, saying that there was still ground to make up on other teams in terms of execution.

“We needed to be a little bit more accurate and we might have got the four tries. We were certainly chasing the five points, that's why Danny Cipriani tried that little chip out of our 22 late in the game that led to their try,” he said.

“But as Danny said in the dressing room after the game, if we win every game we will go through and we won't need to worry about bonus points.

“The last time we won the Heineken Cup we played Castres in the first game and we were hoping for a four-try victory. On that occasion we won a tight game, so a win is a win as far as I'm concerned. There are a lot of things we can now build on.

“Going to Dublin to face Leinster is going to be very difficult offensively. Leinster are very strong behind the scrum with an all international back line. They have also added to their forward power by signing CJ van der Linde and Rocky Elsom.

“They are the complete package at the moment.”

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