Wasps are magical amid an Italian farce
AT TIMES yesterday Wasps were at their mesmeric best, displaying the type of excellence the Premiership has become accustomed to, yet it was tinged with regret as the competition’s creditability diminished as a result.
Last season, the new European format drew criticism from those in the PRO12 camp for making it an England and France duopoly, but the alteration to the group stage did, to its credit, reduce the number of mismatches that took place.
Unfortunately, they have not gone completely and, for those at the Ricoh Arena, they had the misfortune of witnessing a virtually pointless affair, apart from the scoreboard!
You wonder why teams like Zebre bother turning up if they are not going to produce the required effort. While Wasps’ budget and quality dwarfs that of the Italians, the basics could at least be applied with a semblance of competence.
Tackling and defensive organisation, the first things to go when belief is absent, was particularly poor as Dai Young’s men, who again displayed some wonderful touches, eased past the Italians.
As soon as the gloomy morning weather turned into bright sunshine 30 minutes before kick-off, the result was inevitable but this was embarrassing.
Zebre shipped 12 tries in all as a Joe Launchbury and Danny Cipriani-inspired side gave the hosts an ideal start to the Champions Cup.
Cipriani received the official man of the match honours, and gave further credence to those who think he should be in the England squad.
Launchbury dominated proceedings up front.
Young said: “I thought Joe Launchbury was outstanding, although it was very hard to pick a poor performance out of us. He did all the bits and pieces really well and came up with big moments to get us well down the track.
“Once he gets out there I just think he looks like a real world class second-row.
“The challenge for Joe is to keep injury free and if he does that, it’s going to be very tough to keep him out of that starting line-up for England.”
Launchbury, alongside Cipriani, displayed international class in helping the Midlanders beat their previous biggest win in Europe’s top-tier tournament, surpassing the 77-17 victory over French giants Toulouse in 1996.
Wasps went 21-0 up after 14 minutes and never looked back. Rob Miller, Jake Cooper-Woolley and Joe Simpson all touched down before replacement Federico Ruzza briefly reduced the deficit for Zebre.
At that point, the Italian outfit were down to 14 players following Andries van Schalkwyk’s sin-binning but, even when he returned, the frustrations persisted.
Miller crossed the whitewash for his second after Frank Halai had shown excellent dexterity to juggle Cipriani’s cross-field kick, before the wing scored himself.
Although Ruzza notched a double, intercepting a loose pass, Ashley Johnson and Elliot Daly tries either side of the break took Wasps 47-14 clear.
It was now a matter of how many points the hosts would accrue and, when Carlo Festuccia received a yellow card, Launchbury continued the Coventry team’s domination by scoring from close range.
Josh Bassett and Simpson added to the visitors’ woes with two quick-fire efforts before James Gaskell and Dan Robson rounded off an overwhelming performance.