Robson leads the charge for Wasps and stakes England claim with four-try display
Wasps began their Premiership revenge mission with an impressive win and four tries for scrum-half Dan Robson, who firmly put up his hand to win a first England cap in the November internationals.
Wasps finished the regular season on top of the table but lost the final to Exeter Chiefs in extra-time, so their seven-try performance sent out the message that Dai Young’s charges are out to atone.
Yet Sale’s five tries show there is still work to be done defensively and Sharks have a dogged streak with only eight points separating the sides on 60 minutes.
Young was frank in his assessement of both his side’s performance and deficiencies as well as those of opposition.
“I was particularly pleased with our first 20 minutes,” he said. “It got a bit loose in the second half but you have to give Sale a lot of credit, they are always going to keep coming back at you. As normal, lots of things to work on. Sometimes we are our own worst enemy and cause ourselves problems.”
Robson was seen by many, including his club coach, as unlucky to not make Eddie Jones’s touring party to Argentina last June.
Young said: “I thought Dan showed his real class today and on numerous occasions throughout last season. I hadn’t discussed it with Eddie but we are due a meeting in the next week or two. I was a bit confused why he didn’t go to Argentina.
“From my understanding he was third in line and I know Dan had a pretty positive conversation with Eddie prior to the selection. So he [too] struggled to understand. I know Eddie has told him to work on his decision making. Coaches see different things from different players but I thought he was outstanding today.”
Early on Wasps had all the hunger, blasting to a 21-0 lead within 16 minutes via Robson’s opening two tries followed by Christian Wade who was aided in slicing open the Sale defence by fly-half Danny Cipriani.
New signing Gaby Lovobalavu made an immediate impression, dangerous in attack and hard-hitting in defence, a performance that saw the Fijian named man of the match by Wasps’ coaching staff.
Robson sealed his hat-trick on 34 minutes and Sale youngster Ben Curry closed the first-half scoring.
After Robson went in for his fourth try, Sale benefited from some poor handling from Wasps. England wing Denny Solomona, who has a point to prove after being sent home from Jones’s most recent England camp for disciplary issues, struck next followed by a try from new signing South African scrum-half Faf de Klerk. Wasps closed out the game in style in the closing 10 minutes with tries from replacement lock Will Rowlands, flanker Alex Rieder and No8 Josh Strauss.
Despite conceeding five tries and 35 points Young said there were bright spots in Wasps’ defensive performance.
He said: “It sounds ridiculous conceding five tries but there were parts of our defence I thought were really good.
“I think if you look at from where those tries come from, we had the ball, it wasn’t necessarily pressure from Sale, we had the ball. I was pleased with probably 75 per cent of our play with the ball.”