Dallaglio: Wasps ready to graft

THE sign inside their clubhouse in Ealing, west London reads, ‘Welcome to Twyford Avenue, Home of Wasps’.

The training grounds (they play their matches in High Wycombe) are a modest setting for the two-time European Cup champions but, as their most famous son, Lawrence Dallaglio, reminds us: “It’s an honest place of work; there’s nothing flash about it, that’s for sure.” One thing is certain: this is an airs-and-graces-free zone where rugby egos aren’t tolerated.

It is 1pm on the Tuesday before their Heineken Cup clash with Munster. A parade of legends — Dallaglio, Raphael Ibanez and Phil Vickery — file past into an ordinary but functional gym. Above the door another sign reads: ‘Don’t come to play, come to work’, a motto that best sums up the work ethic of a club that thrives on honesty and being the underdog in battle.