Ten minutes of madness
Former Wasps and England prop Will Green, now with Leinster, summed it up: “We gave up the game in the ten minutes after half time. They were down to 14 men and we should have taken advantage. Instead, we coughed up two scores and it was game over.”
It was a brutally frank comment that few could disagree with. Those moments wrecked Leinster’s season and smashed their prospects of becoming the third Irish team to win the Heineken Cup.
In contention at half time, Leinster could not have bargained for what was about to unfold early in the second period. With captain Lawrence Dallaglio cooling his heels in the sin-bin, one would have expected Leinster to take advantage.
Instead, it was Wasps that pulled clear to stamp their class on the tie, leaving coach Ian McGeechan ecstatic.
“Leinster posed us lots of problems in the first half, but the way we responded was magnificent,” he said.
McGeechan also had words of support for his skipper Dallaglio. “It’s hard to quantify just how much you need experience sometimes, until you see it on the field. Lawrence played a huge role in this success.”
Leinster will be disappointed at their failure to cope, particularly at scrum time. At one stage, a seven man Wasps pack had Leinster careering backwards at the rate of knots. Only Stephen Keogh emerged with full reputation intact.
Leinster coach Michael Cheika will also be disappointed at the failure of the back division to respond fully to the challenge. However, there were mitigating circumstances such as the failure of referee Nigel Owens or his touch-judges to marshal and punish the Wasps defenders for several blatant offsides.
The blitz defence employed by Wasps defence was well documented by Leinster in the build up to the game. However, shorn of their captain and talisman Brian O’Driscoll, they were sadly bereft of ideas to combat this tactic.
Kieran Lewis didn’t play badly, but he’s no O’Driscoll and offers nothing like the same threat. Girvan Dempsey, Denis Hickie and Gordon D’Arcy gave it their best shot, but Felipe Contepomi again under-performed in a crucial game.
A brace of Alex King penalties put Wasps 6-0 to the good in the opening minutes, but Leinster signalled their intent to attack from the outset.
However, the visitors’ opening try came about by fortuitous means. Referee Nigel Owens’s positioning clearly interfered with Wasps defenders as Chris Whitaker sniped around the fringe of a ruck, and the scrum-half cantered through to score.
However, Wasps hit back with an opportunistic try in the 41st minute. Jamie Heaslip lost control of the ball amid a big tackle from Fraser Waters near the Wasps 22, allowing Eoin Reddan to pounce and gallop to the line untouched.
King converted for a 13-7 lead, but when Dallaglio was binned for blatantly killing the ball under his own posts, Contepomi slotted the simple kick to reduce their arrears to three at the break.
However, Wasps simply smashed Leinster on the resumption, with substitute James Haskell and 19-year-old fullback Danny Cipriani crossing to push the lead out to 25-10.
Contepomi kicked a penalty midway through the half as Leinster attempted to play catch-up, but King responded quickly and Reddan finished the Irish off with another spectacular try in the 70th minute, with King converting.
Wasps scorers — Tries: Reddan 2, Haskell, Cipriani. Cons: King 3. Pens: King 3.
Leinster scorers — Tries: Whitaker. Cons: Contepomi. Pens: Contepomi 2.
Cipriani, Lewsey, Waters, Waldouck, Voyce, King, Reddan, Payne, Ibanez, Vickery, Shaw, Palmer, Worsley, Rees, Dallaglio.
Replacements: van Gisbergen for King (70), McMillan for Reddan (76), Bracken for Payne (30), Ward for Ibanez (70), Haskell for Worsley (41), Leo for Dallaglio (63).
Dempsey, Horgan, Lewis, D’Arcy, Hickie, Contepomi, Whitaker, Wright, Jackman, Green, Hogan, O’Kelly, Keogh, Gleeson, Heaslip.
Replacements: Kearney for Dempsey (75), Warner for Lewis (75), Blaney for Jackman (54), Finegan for Hogan (58), Jowitt for Keogh (70).
Nigel Owens (WRFU).
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