Dallaglio relishing Munster match

Wasps captain Lawrence Dallaglio tonight set his sights on a Heineken Cup semi-final showdown with Munster, and declared: “It will be a great challenge for us.”

Wasps coasted into the penultimate knockout round by crushing Zurich Premiership rivals Gloucester 34-3 at the Causeway Stadium in Wycombe.

The result guaranteed Wasps’ best-ever performance in Europe and it was also a record quarter-final victory for the competition, surpassing Toulouse’s 30-3 success against Swansea eight years ago.

Gloucester, beaten 39-3 by Wasps in the Premiership play-off final last season, were outscored 5-0 on tries, and Wasps will now fancy their chances of ending Munster’s European dream in Dublin on April 25.

“We are in uncharted territory now, but the Munster game will be a great challenge for us,” said Wasps skipper Dallaglio.

“I am a big fan of Munster. I think that they have played something like 59 Heineken Cup matches, but we enjoy the atmosphere against the odds.”

Munster reached their fifth successive Heineken Cup semi-final by knocking out French champions Stade Francais yesterday, and will have the lion’s share of support at Lansdowne Road in two weeks’ time.

On current form though, Wasps have every chance of securing a Heineken Cup final appointment with either Toulouse or Biarritz at Twickenham on May 23.

“This was a very satisfying result,” said Wasps rugby director Warren Gatland. “We desperately wanted to make the semi-finals, and we are now looking forward to it very much.

“Gloucester threw everything at us during the first 20 minutes, but we wanted to ask questions about whether they could last for 80 minutes.”

It was an eventful day for Dallaglio, who scored a try, collected a yellow card and was also on the receiving end following a worrying clash of heads with his team-mate Paul Volley.

“There are two heads that you don’t want to collide with at this club – one in Trevor Leota’s, and the other is Paul Volley’s, but I am okay,” he said. “I thought my yellow card was harsh. I saw someone drop the knee on one of my players, and I dived in.”

Dallaglio also claimed that he required little motivation for his final team talk, given that the Gloucester players ran directly in front of Wasps’ warm-up and in front of the Gloucester fans who sang Munster’s traditional rugby anthem ‘Fields of Athenry’.

“When the opposition decide to parade around you, and their supporters start singing ‘Fields of Athenry’, then it does the job for you,” Dallaglio added.

Dallaglio, scrum-half Rob Howley, Leota and substitute Ayoola Erinle claimed touchdowns for Wasps and there was also a penalty try, while fly-half Alex King chipped in with three conversions and a penalty. Gloucester’s solitary response was a Henry Paul penalty.

“Not a lot went right,” conceded Gloucester rugby director and former Wasps boss Nigel Melville. “We couldn’t get into the game at all, and it was always going to be an uphill struggle.

Gloucester coach Dean Ryan added: “There was a 10 or 15-minute period before half-time when things worked against us. We got a yellow card during that time, and it was like a scatter-gun period – we didn’t know how to solve it.”