DISCUSSION POINTS

Le Roux, Wade, Daly… we all know what creative attacking talents Wasps possess and it’s little wonder they score so highly in those statistics from 2017-18.

With 288, they made more clean breaks than any other team and were in the top two for passes, defenders beaten and tries.

Yet there are two areas of concern going into this campaign. Firstly, can star signing Lima Sopoaga match Danny Cipriani’s ability to terrorise defences and help those around him to do the same while he gets to grips with northern hemisphere rugby?

Secondly, can they be solid in defence? They conceded more than 500 points in the regular season – that’s an average of nearly 23 a game, way too high for a team with title aspirations. Their other big signing, workhorse flanker Brad Shields, should help in this area and new assistant coach Ian Costello will aim to make them as effective without the ball as they are with it.