Koch fronts up to go straight into action for Wasps debut
VINCENT Koch will make his Wasps debut from the start against Northampton Saints in tomorrow’s Coventry Building Society Arena clash (3pm).
The tighthead prop only started training with his new club this week after returning from South Africa’s Rugby Championship campaign. He gets the nod ahead of John Ryan, who is among the replacements as Biyi Alo misses out.
A second Wasps Premiership debut will occur when Immanuel Feyi-waboso emerges from the bench. The teenager signed from Cardiff has impressed in the opening rounds of the Premiership Rugby Cup.
There’s a new midfield partnership in the form of
Ryan Mills and Burger Odendaal, while Dan Robson starts ahead of Will Porter at scrum-half.
Paolo Odogwu starts on the right wing for his first league minutes of the season after a dead leg ruled him out of the opening three rounds.
Odogwu and Rodrigo Martinez, who is on the bench on Sunday, made their comebacks in last week’s midweek defeat to Leicester Tigers in the Premiership Rugby Cup. For Northampton Saints, Courtney Lawes misses out once more but Dan Biggar starts in his first game since announcing he would be leaving the club at the end of the season.
Tommy Freeman could break a Gallagher Premiership record (which he equalled last weekend against Quins) on Sunday by scoring in his ninth consecutive league match.
It’ll be Wasps’ first league outing since their emotional round three win over Bath which came just two days after the club filed its notice of intention to appoint administrators. A second notice was filed this week as Wasps’ off-the-field issues linger in the background.
“I just go back to our last Premiership game at Bath and with everything that was going on with something that came out of the blue, the reaction of the players and all the staff was pretty special,” said head coach Lee Blackett. “It shows what a
great group we have got. The performance they put in that day considering everything that happened the previous 48 hours just shows us exactly where we are and the people we have got involved in the set-up.
“The big thing is keeping that going as long as we can. For us, it is being positive. I have seen nothing but professionalism from the players.
“We are just getting on with our job and we will leave everything else to the people above.”
WASPS: 15 Jacob Umaga, 14 Paolo Odogwu, 13 Burger Odendaal, 12 Ryan Mills, 11 Josh Bassett, 10 Charlie Atkinson, 9 Dan Robson; 1 Robin Hislop, 2 Gabriel Oghre, 3 Vincent Koch, 4 Joe Launchbury (c), 5 Kiran Mcdonald, 6 Nizaam Carr, 7 Jack Willis, 8 Tom Willis. Replacements: 16 Dan Frost, 17 Rodrigo Martinez, 18 John Ryan, 19 Tim Cardall, 20 Ben Morris, 21 Will Porter, 22 Will Haydon-wood, 23 Immanuel Feyi-waboso.