Young baffled by Wasps players’ snub at Test level
Wasps boss Dai Young is baffled by the omission of several of his in-form players from the British and Irish Lions squad for their tour of New Zealand and England’s trip to Argentina.
Much has been said about England lock Joe Launchbury being left out of the Lions squad and while Young agrees with that sentiment, his greatest sympathy lays with veteran flanker James Haskell.
The 32-year-old was Wasps’ standout performer last season and also impressed at Test level for England where he was named player of the series in Australia.
He was ruled out for six months with a toe injury and despite making a comeback earlier this year, he was also sidelined with concussion. This meant it was always going to be struggling to make the Lions squad, a team which he has never represented in his career.
“I really feel for Hask because if you look at last year’s Six Nations and in the summer, man of the series,” Young told The Telegraph.
“It’s a hard pill to swallow, if you’ve got 70-odd caps for his country and not made a Lions tour. Joe, if he doesn’t get on the plane, has potentially got another crack, he’s young enough. Hask probably hasn’t. That will eat away at him deep down. He’s 32 now and probably feels deep down it’s unlikely he’s going to have another crack.
“He was coming into the Six Nations with 35 seconds and 50 minutes, he didn’t have a lot of rugby under his belt and was drip-fed into England then. Having that amount of time out, with that little rugby, it’s physically impossible to be at your best.”
Haskell will represent England on their tour to Argentina and will be joined by in that squad by Launchbury and Wasps number eight Nathan Hughes but there was no place on that group for their club team-mates Christian Wade (wing), Danny Cipriani (fly-half), Tommy Taylor (hooker), Mat Symons (lock) and Dan Robson (scrum-half).
And Young is equally perplexed by England head coach Eddie Jones’ decision not to pick the aforementioned players.
“I’m surprised for a team that is sitting at the top, how few representative players we’ve got,” he added.
“You look at the Premiership teams below us, most of them have got more representatives on the Lions and England.”
Young is particularly disappointed by Wade’s ommission as the player has been superb in the Premiership all season and needs just two more tries to break the record for most tries in that competition in a season.
Young feels the 26-year-old is being ignored because he is perceived to be a defensive liability.
“Over the last couple of the seasons, he has worked so much on his defence and he is now one of the best defenders within our team,” he added.
“He very rarely misses a tackle. Makes some really good defensive reads. He may get one wrong every now and again but so does everyone.”