Young: You expect a player of Willie’s quality to score that
WASPS director of rugby Dai Young told how Willie Le Roux said sorry to his team-mates for dropping the ball as he dived over the line.
“He apologised at halftime – he was disappointed and he had his head in his hands,” said Young.
“I am not saying it was a turning factor because we had 55 minutes to play. You expect a player of that quality to score – but we also gave away two tries.
“We looked like rabbits in the headlights in that first half and the biggest disappointment is we didn’t do ourselves justice.”
Young added: “In these games you can’t give yourself a mountain to climb like we did in the first half.
“We knew we had to be at our best and we didn’t need to help them along the way.”
Wasps inflicted a record 33-6 defeat on Leinster at the RDS last season, and also won 51-10 at home, but this was a horror show by the Premiership leaders.
They blew their one big chance to establish a foothold in the game when Le Roux’s showboating cost them a try after 24 minutes when they trailed 7-0 to Isa Nacewa’s early score.
Leinster fly-half Johnny Sexton, who starred in his duel with Danny Cipriani, said: “We wanted to show we had a physical backline but conditions were awful. The ball was like a bar of soap.”
Leinster head coach Leo Cullen added: “We started really well but some of our play was a bit frustrating midway through the first half when we were a bit disjointed – but I was delighted with the way we took our chances.”