By Sparkie
May 23 2003

Wasps beat a rag-tag Northampton team 19-10 in the Zurich Premiership playoff semi-final. With so many players out injured, Saints were stuck on their back foot. We on the other hand have won the incongruous right to wrest the Championship from runaway ZP leaders, Gloucester, at HQ on May 31st. Down the M4 in Cardiff, Arsenal and Southampton were busy doing nothing, or so it seemed. For all the excesses of Premier League soccer, the fare on offer in the FA Cup final was exceedingly poor. Those players earn how much?

Meanwhile Wasps' final game of the season at our latest adopted home in a verdant valley of the Chilterns was always going to be a tight affair. However, pound for pound, it was vastly better value for money -- especially the admission price, a very sensible £10 for any adult seat -- well done Wasps.

Fortunately we seem to have learned how to play in the typically damp and muggy conditions -- worryingly the final scoring pass is still missing from our tool box. What has happened to our peripheral vision?

Northampton's makeshift team found the conditions harder going and could not sustain any sort of attacking edge to their game with senior figures such as Dawson, Pountney and Smith out injured. Grayson's sore ankle severely restricted his movement and he just could not get over the gain line. It was no surprise that he exited stage left after Howley caught him napping at the end of the first quarter.

By then Wasps should have been out of sight but the poor execution evident over the last two matches continued to haunt our endeavours. Logan posted our intent in the second minute by missing a long-range penalty goal attempt.

The first ten minutes belonged to Wasps. Two driven lineouts in a row ended up short by the sticks. No fewer than three attacking scrum fives tested Saints' pack to the limit but no penalty try was issued by referee White, so King took the sensible option and opened the scoring with an easy penalty goal.

Wasps continued to stretch the play but Leota failed to pass outside -- a continuing theme during the match. Saints' first real foray ended in a stolen lineout and Wasps broke. Grayson departed to watch form the sidelines. King hacked on as the ball went loose behind Saints' pressurised scrum. Vass chased back to stop the move in the face of three Wasps backs but he couldn't clear his lines. Another scrum five to us ended in another turnover.

Northampton finally got going when one of their rare attacks yielded a penalty and Reihana levelled the scores. Wasps went back to the script: a three quarters move and a line out driven fully 20 metres both ended in turnovers. Then a Beal clearance kick ricocheted into touch off Logan. Another charge down ended in two more scrum fives to Wasps and, you've guessed it, yet another turnover. The script needed rewriting.

Just as the half looked to be petering out, Logan won a turnover and Wasps moved the ball into Saints' territory. King took the chance to extend the lead with his second penalty goal in the 38th minute. One could almost see Wasps' players thinking, "Time to regroup and await Gats' ritual half-time tongue lashing."

Sure enough, we gave up the ball from Reihana's drop out restart. Brooks, on for Grayson, was obviously thinking of a tea break too though and his aimless, floated pass came into the compass of King's superbly weighted left boot. The ball was hacked through to Saints' 22 eluding Cohen's sweep with his right boot. Waters was able to keep ahead of the cover to hack the ball into the goal area with a sublime touch of his own left peg and he scored a scrappy but well deserved try after all our pressure.

Our 13-3 advantage lasted just two minutes into the second half. A Wasps scrum near halfway led to a severely speculative chip by Howley which fell straight into the hands of Reihana. The outside centre pierced our wrong-footed defence, linked with fellow Kiwi, Leslie, and Cohen was left with one man to beat. The England winger shaped to step inside before literally leaving Lewsey on his heels. Although Waters and Van Gisbergen got across, Cohen was adjudged to have grounded the ball before being shunted into touch in goal.

Reihana's touchline conversion might have signalled Saints' resurgence but Wasps got back straight to the grinding stone. A scrum 30m out was fed to Lewsey who linked with Dallaglio before Paul Volley made inroads and Saints killed the move a few metres from the line. The penalty lineouts were repulsed but Saints' prop, Stewart, was tempted to drive through a ruck from an offside position and he was given ten minutes to reflect on life. King kicked the panlty to stretch the lead to six points.

Wasps propensity to waste clear chances was no more apparent than when Howley took advantage of a knock-on (missed by the referee) to steal through Saints' midfield. Quite out of character, he completely ignored Lewsey who was screaming up on his right wing. Northampton wasted a huge advantage themselves and for once Wasps managed to keep a clean sheet whilst facing 14 men, one of the few positives of the second half.

With Saints back to full strength, Beal's clearances became as erratic as Logan's handling. One Beal slice was finally run back with interest and King took the opportunity to drop a goal on the hour. Wasps were almost out of sight points-wise, if not quality-wise.

The final quarter was the usual tale of replacements galore, missed chances and lack of direction. Saints awoke from their end-of-season torpor after King missed another dropped goal but it was to no avail. Blowers departed and their revival was at an end. The so-called Hurricane was a spent force having played out of position at no. 8. Blowers wreaks havoc at six or seven but at eight he had a Dallaglio intent on returning to Twickenham to contend with.

There was just time for King to miss a late 40m penalty attempt and for Shaw to steal Northampton ball in our territory but his pass to Lewsey was centimetres forward. Shaw stole a very loose Northampton lineout and again we drove to within metres of the line. Northampton's defence held as we knew it would but we had booked a date with Mellie's Cherry and Whites.

Next stop, the Madejski Stadium to witness just how good a full strength Bath team might be in the Parker Pen Challenge Cup final. We just have to sweat our white line fever out of the team by then and work on our lines of communication.