Gatland expects special things from Wasps

Wasps boss Warren Gatland today paid tribute to his “special group of players” as his side began looking ahead to their Heineken Cup semi-final showdown with Munster.

English champions Wasps will travel to Dublin in a fortnight’s time, meeting Munster at Lansdowne Road as their reward for crushing Zurich Premiership rivals Gloucester 34-3.

Wasps had never previously progressed beyond the quarter-final stage, but they blew that record into oblivion, out-scoring their Causeway Stadium visitors 5-0 on tries.

And although Munster are far more experienced at the business end of top-level European rugby, having reached a fifth successive semi-final, Wasps will go into battle confident of securing a Twickenham appointment with either Toulouse or Biarritz next month.

“We desperately wanted to make the semi-finals, and this is a special group of players,” said rugby director Gatland.

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

It took Wasps 18 minutes to open their account, but once scrumhalf Rob Howley had gone over for a quality try, there was no holding them back.

They romped into a 19-3 lead by the break, courtesy of a penalty try and skipper Lawrence Dallaglio’s touchdown, while fly-half Alex King chipped in with two conversions and Gloucester were as good as finished.

The biggest concern for Wasps was a sickening clash of heads between skipper Dallaglio and his back-row partner Paul Volley, but both players were given the all-clear after a lengthy delay for treatment.

The second half was one-way traffic as it went from bad to worse for the West Country club. Hooker Trevor Leota and substitute centre Ayoola Erinle added further tries, and Wasps comfortably coped, even though they lost Dallaglio to the sin-bin.

“I thought the yellow card was harsh,” said Dallaglio. “I saw someone drop the knee on one of my players and I dived in.”

And as for the semi-final, Dallaglio added: “I am a big fan of Munster’s. I think they have played something like 59 Heineken Cup matches, and we are in uncharted territory in terms of the semi-finals, so it is going to be a great challenge for us.

“But we enjoy the atmosphere against the odds, and we certainly made the step up that we required for this match.”

Gloucester, having been thumped 39-3 by Wasps in the Premiership play-off final last season, once again finished a distant second best.

“Not a lot went right for us – we didn’t get possession or territory, and we couldn’t get into the game at all,” said Gloucester rugby director and former Wasps supremo Nigel Melville.

“I don’t compare the two games between this one and the play-off match at Twickenham, but I thought that Wasps were exceptional.”

French referee Joel Jutge awarded a controversial penalty try against Gloucester and also yellow-carded hooker Chris Fortey, and coach Dean Ryan admitted it was a phase of the game when everything drifted away.

“There was a 10 or 15 minute period when things worked against us. It was like a scatter-gun period, and we didn’t know how to solve it,” conceded Ryan.

“There was a lot of confusion out there, but there was no hiding the fact that Wasps were significantly better than us – they are a very professional side.”