Wrong Time of Year for Wasps?

Wasps will not fancy any trip to Kingsholm just at the moment but they certainly won't fancy a trip in a wet January without their talisman -Simon Shaw. The England giant was carried off last week and will be missing for a few weeks. We will be without Sir Lesley Volcano ..

No doubt the Waspies will be relieved to see him out of our squad but the old adage still rings true -[specially on heavy pitches]- "The forwards win  you games and the backs decicde by how much."

So we will be looking to our new second row combo of Will Buxton and Peter James. That's enforced by the nasty eye injury to Bortolami  and an arm injury for Alex Brown. 

If the new pair can win plenty of line out ball - helped by Shaw's absence - we should be able to manage! 

One major boost is the return of Andy Hazell to the back row. The flanker is as good as anyone in the Premiership and his mere presence on the pitch will lift the side.

 The Volcano's  knee injury was not serious, but he won't be risked, so it means a shuffle in the back with Simpson-Daniel moving inside and Willie Walker coming in at full back to allow Balshaw to start on the wing. 

Score prediction Gloucs 27 Wasps 12  

Team: Willie Walker, Iain Balshaw, James Simpson-Daniel, Mike Tindall, James Bailey; Ryan Lamb, Rory Lawson; Nick Wood, Olivier Azam, Carlos Nieto, Peter Buxton, Will James, Luke Narraway, Andy Hazell, Gareth Delve.

Reps: Mark Foster, Jeremy Paul, Patrice Collazo, Gareth Cooper, Dan Tuohy, Alasdair Strokosch, Anthony Allen,