MATCH PREVIEW: WASPS v CARDIFF BLUES

Hopefully smiling
By Dobbin
April 29 2010

And then there was one. After last week's loss to Bath at Twickenham, an event failed only by the performance of the home team, Wasps turn their attention to the remaining competition they have a realistic shot at – the Amlin Challenge Cup.

In their way stand the Cardiff Blues. Once simply Cardiff RFC of Cliff Morgan, Gareth Edwards and Gerald Davies fame, playing out of a homely Cardiff Arms Park ground stuck limpet-like to the side of the national stadium, they are now the spangly, shiny, regional Blues team with a spangly, shiny new (although somewhat less central) ground – the imaginatively monikered Cardiff City Stadium. An image makeover to make Peter Mandelson proud. Off with the moustache, on with the Saville Row suit, tally-ho Europe and a seat in the Lords. Simples.

Last season, the Blues looked like one of the coming teams in Europe. Pipped in that epic and then frankly bizarre Heineken Cup semi-final in a penalty shoot-out against Leicester, after qualifying top in the pool stages (doing the double over both Biarritz and Gloucester in the process) and squeaking past Toulouse in the quarters, they must have been highly-fancied for this season's competition. Somehow, however, it hasn't quite gone to plan. While it is never easy to escape your pool when it also includes Toulouse, they did manage to beat the French giants at home and had solid home victories over the other two teams in their group, Sale and Harlequins. Unfortunately, a narrow defeat at Edgeley Park and a failure to secure a try-scoring bonus point until their final pool game at the Stoop cost them dear, missing out on a lucky loser's place in the HEC quarter-finals by a single point. That meant a drop down to the Amlin quarter finals and a meeting with Newcastle, which they duly won 55-20, running in seven tries in the process. They are the only remaining HEC team in the Amlin Challenge Cup and, despite a middling season in the Magners League and that early exit from this year's Heineken, will provide a very stern test for Wasps this Saturday.

For Wasps, forgetting last weekend's thrashing at the hands of Bath must have been one of the chief aims this week. A defence too easily outflanked, an attack showing none of the fluency or finishing power of the previous three games - all Wasps fans will be hoping that these were mere blips, the bum note on an otherwise fantastic occasion. The Blues management team will have noted Bath's tactics and know that they have the personnel to replicate them, should Wasps' be in such a giving mood again. Up front Cardiff boast the likes of Gethin Jenkins, Paul Tito, Martyn Williams and the evergreen ex-Auckland Blue, Xavier Rush. Behind the pack Ceri Sweeny and Lion Jamie Roberts will pose big questions for Wasps' midfield defence and another New Zealander, Ben Blair, is an always reliable full-back with a highly accurate boot, should Wasps get on the wrong side of referee Roman Poite.

Selection wise, Wasps have issues on the wing, where both David Lemi and Tom Varndell were injured last week. Additionally, there might also be questions about the make-up of the second row, where Dan Ward-Smith had proved so effective until he moved back to Number Eight for the Worcester game. In the centre, it could be time to bring Jacobs back into the 13 shirt and move Waldouck inwards, although the wing situation might put the kibosh on that. Whoever is selected, however, will know that unless they up their game several notches from last week, it won't make a jot of difference. Cardiff are as dangerous as Bath, in some areas more so. Home advantage has to be made to count now that we are genuinely at home.

Familiarity certainly won't be a problem on Saturday. In European competition these two clubs have met just once, in the pool stages of the 1996/7 Heineken Cup, Cardiff coming out winners at Loftus Road by 26 points to 24. A year or two later (the games seem to have been expunged from the record, for some strange reason) the two teams met again, this time in a friendly match, Cardiff and Swansea having cocked a snook at the WRU and decided to play the English clubs for a season, considerately bringing their own referees with them. I think Cardiff probably won that one as well. And finally, the Blues and Wasps met once again in the 2006/7 Anglo-Welsh cup, this time at Cardiff Arms Park, and once again the Welsh team won, 36-20 on this occasion. Three matches in thirteen years, all honours going to Cardiff. It's not exactly what you'd call a jinx, but it's a trend Wasps will be raring to break this Saturday.

Whatever happens, this really will be Wasps' last home game of the season, and therefore our last chance to see Cips, Sackey and Skivs in the black and gold at Adams Park. All three have been involved in Wasps' successful European adventures in the past. Let's hope that against Cardiff on Saturday they're part of a winning team once again, and then we can all figure out how to get to Marseilles on a Sunday afternoon (or Kingsholm, of course).

Allez Wasps!

Posted by: DrunkenWasps.com (IP Logged)

Date: 29/04/2010 13:12

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