Wasps glow red hot in Championship cauldron

By Sparkie
June 10 2003

The arguments over the format will rumble on over the summer but the record book will state baldly that Wasps are the Zurich Champions of 2002-03. Forced to re-earn their title after a near perfect season, Gloucester turned up for barely ten minutes before folding in 37 degrees of heat.

The professional game continues to change apace but traditionalists and newcomers alike still find the sudden death decider a strange vehicle to tack on to a full 22-game season. The 39-3 result in favour of Wasps was a brutal way to re-educate poor old Joe Public into accepting this brave new world. Gloucester's three-week pregnant pause whilst they waited for the big day to come around seems to have done them no favours at all.

Fortune favours the brave and Wasps took full advantage of the competition's revised rules. Given the chance to claw back half-a-dozen places since another of our bleak Novembers, Warren Gatland's side reset their vision at the turn of the year and went for broke after the two titles available to us. Gloucester provided the first test in the New Year and, in truth, gave us an illustration in how to win "ugly" by beating us by seven points.

Wasps reeled off 13 consecutive wins in both competitions to set up a champion finale to our season. Harlequins, bless them, had the luck to take advantage of our dip in form on the last day of the scheduled season to sneak a win as results elsewhere went our way. And there's the rub -- on a different weekend AND in a previous season, Wasps would have thrashed Quins and finished only ten points down on Gloucester, wishing we had turned the screw more tightly away to Bath and at home to Leeds. We would have got close to Gloucester but conceded them the championship with a week or three to go.

But back to THIS season...how Sale must be kicking themselves about their poor form away to Saracens. A bonus point loss (or a bonus point win) would have put a completely different complexion on their campaign. We can all ponder as much as we like, the end result was always going to come via the playoffs at the end of a long, hard nine-month slog.

Did Gloucester take their eye off the ball? Did the synergy that Wasps generated by being able to chase two rewards pay off handsomely? To paraphrase an apt line or two from Peter Gabriel's (Hunter and Hunted) Family Snapshot, "Today was different, Today was not the same... -- The answer, it seems, was blowing in the scorching breeze of Twickenham's lush turf. Wasps had prepared for just such a day by donning bin liners during training.

To complete the mis-en-scène, consider these two telling utterances by Captain Dallaglio during this campaign. The first one followed our first match at Adams Park (a friendly against Connacht): "We'd better win the championship this season. I'm not getting any younger". The second one came during his speech at the players' awards dinner just two days after we had won the Parker Pen Challenge Cup, the pronouncement came as he flashed a broad grin: "Aren't Gloucester whingeing a lot this week? They must be nervous!"

Rob Howley once mistook such supreme confidence as arrogance. One suspects most outsiders will continue to do so. Underestimate Wasps at your peril...! Gloucester certainly misunderstimated (to use a Bushism) us at Twickenham. However, both their supporters and ours little suspected what was to unfold before our eyes in the HQ heat haze whilst we shared a few cheery beers at the Eel Pie before the match. They were just as confident of winning as Wasps were, and rightly so.

The first hint of an upset came within 70 seconds of the start. Wasps ran the ball behind our first scrum. Stuart Abbott shimmied through an open gate left between the swiftly moving Henry Paul and a surprisingly sluggish Terry Fanolua and drew the last line of defence. Before Gloucester could rub their eyes Abbott had popped the ball to Josh Lewsey, running a great line to the posts off his right wing berth. 7-0, game on.

Gloucester replied immediately upon restarting, Ludovic Mercier slotting a long range penalty goal after Wasps back row entered a maul from the side. Ten points inside three minutes, we were expecting a classic. Wasps then turned over a Gloucester lineout, clearly we were on our mettle.

The rub of the green went Wasps way minutes later. A bounce-pass by Mark Van Gisbergen behind our scrum was clearly forward but it was missed by the officials. Lewsey took the ball up deep into Cherry and White territory, sucking in the defence. Wasps recycled twice and Howley shipped the ball on to Simon Shaw, doing his impression of a flying winger. Tony Spreadbury ruled that Wasps had obstructed and denied us the try but he pulled Gloucester up for offside. Alex King got his eye in with a successful penalty goal from the right-hand tram line.

King stretched the lead to 10 points after Gloucester knocked on and conceded a penalty. Wasps stand-off was revelling in the situation and attempted a dropped goal as we picked and drove, but it was just wide of the mark. Gloucester struggled to gain field position and a hasty clearance kick was run back by Van Gisbergen who set up a successful dropped goal for King.

Wasps' incessant pressure told in the first quarter. Gloucester's formidable pack puffed and panted as more Waspish hard yards gave Kenny Logan the chance to test Marcel Garvey. But the Scot fluffed his chip kick and the youngster easily marked the ball. Even when Glaws did get a drive going their handling behind the pack was woeful and Wasps afforded them no respite, despite Fraser Waters departing midfield with a gash over his eye courtesy of a Paul Volley boot.

The Cherry and Whites tried to force their hand by opting to kick for the corner. A driven lineout ended in a Gloucester scrum but Trevor Leota won a strike against the head with five minutes of the half remaining. Wasps showed Glaws the way with a driven lineout move of our own. Three phases later Volley tidied up scrappy ball and Joe Worsley sent Lewsey clear with Logan staying on his wing to draw Garvey away on the drift. King converted to put the Golden Blacks 20 points up.

Glaws had time to copy Wasps' penalty ploy but they muffed their drive as the half ended. Wasps scampered off purposefully for a well-earned cooler as Glaws trudged off with their season's endeavours disappearing over the horizon. Zurich and PRL must have seemed cruel, cruel taskmasters to them as they contemplated another 40 minutes in the pressure cooker...

Any thoughts of a Cherry and White revival were extinguished when Wasps' old-boy, Andy Gomarsall, tried unsuccessfully to reclaim the ball from King following a Wasps transgression. Spreadbury turned to see lock Adam Eustace and Gomars meting out some natural justice to the prone Wasp. Dallaglio took umbrage at the rough stuff and Gomars saw Spreaders' yellow card as he reversed the penalty in our favour.

Gomars rightly considered himself harshly done by but Spreaders was obviously nipping any latent nastiness in the bud. In truth it was not as bad as first impressions looked. Instead of Gloucester having a platform to attack ten metres nearer Wasps' line, it was King kicking Wasps three points further into the lead. Life is hard when your down on your heels.

King added a second dropped goal on the hurry-up and another penalty goal following three trademark phases and the game was about up with half an hour left to play. Glaws finally broke Wasps shackles as the third quarter ended. Olivier Azam escaped down the short-side and eluded two black shirts before Lewsey managed to recover and put in a big hit, knocking the ball from grasp of the burly French hooker.

A rash of replacements and some astute kicking pinned Glaws back for ten minutes and their failure to break-out led to the final score. Gomars attempted to manufacture a swift counterattack as Wasps swarmed all over their line again, but his pass was spilt by replacement prop Andy Deacon. Joe Worsley picked up the pieces and swan-dived over the line, signalling for the Champagne corks to be popped.

A big hit by Dallaglio ensured the game was closed-out without Wasps conceding a try while we searched for a final score in vain. First a chip went straight into touch with Thinus Delport out of position and Garvey struggled to cover with a tight hamstring. Then Spreaders offered Glaws some late charity by calling a forward pass just as Logan looked to have escaped at last.

It mattered not a jot. A Gloucester team shorn of the likes of Woodman and Forrester were out of sorts and three weeks out of time. Wasps were Zurich Champions for 2002-03 for the day; Gloucester remained the trophyless champions-elect. They are the 2002-03 League Champions in most punters eyes. A rumour abounds that Nigel Melville did not pick up a bonus for the season for losing at the death. Major Tom is a very hard man if it is true. Grim times indeed.

Zurich should do the right thing and hammer out another silver salver for them. And Premier Rugby should tinker with the end of season format -- top four play off with first and second getting home semis; perhaps let the European games finish the season to help with continuity. Reduce the Wildcard to three games and it might fly. Let's see what they come up with next...