Wasps miss their champion Dallaglio

Last season the slow starting London Wasps climbed back from tenth place to eventually win the Guinness Premiership. The amazing turn around and comprehensive defeat of a very good Leicester team in the final were built upon the type of bullish resilience for which their long-time figurehead, Lawrence Dallaglio, had become famous.

This season, five rounds into the premiership, Wasps again find themselves in 10th place, but this time without Dallaglio.

Is the resurgence on its way or are Wasps lost without their Lol?

Only when a great player retires from a team sport are we able to truly appreciate their contribution.

Wally Lewis’s departure from the Brisbane Broncos in 1990 rather neatly coincided with the beginning of that team’s evolution into champions, winning five premiership titles over the next decade.

Conversely, Michael Jordan’s pair of retirements, in 1994 and 1999, each ended a three-peat of NBA championships by his Chicago Bulls.

Whilst Dallaglio may not have been the equal of these men in terms of skills and reading of the game, the Englishman was arguably their equal or better in his ability to draw the best out of the men around him.

Confidence became Lawrence and overcame his team mates. When he pulled on his country’s white shirt, he had the look of a man who imagined himself atop Nelson’s column, looking out over a world he had no doubt he could conquer.

Dallaglio carried this belief in himself to Wasps, where he was not alone.

Shaun Edwards, the former rugby league great and now Wasps’ head coach, shares a famously hard-nosed approach to success. Phil Vickery, the former England captain who led his national side in their resolute, backs-to-the-wall charge to the 2007 rugby World Cup final also shared a black and yellow jersey with Dallaglio, as did the pragmatic former French captain, Raphael Ibanez.

Although largely unheralded during his time at Wasps, the departure of Fraser Waters has shown just how much of an influence he had in directing their stifling South African style, rush-up defence.

The Wasps players’ commitment to each other was founded on their individual commitment to success.

As Dallaglio put it recently during the Prince Obolensky lecture, “if I ever thought they (Wasps) were not competitive, I would have left.”

Outside of their experienced elders, Wasps have been developing a rising tide of energetic youth, most readily recognised in their talented fly-half, Danny Cipriani.

In Tom Rees and James Haskell, Wasps have two young backrowers well schooled in the Wasps’ Way and who seemed ready to step up into the void created by Dallaglio’s departure.

The challenge for Wasps’ players this year is to show that the fire was not all in Lawrence’s belly.

Last weekend’s loss to Ireland’s Leinster in the Heineken Cup showed a side full of frustration, able to unleash the fury, but not convert it into points.

Admittedly, it took nothing short of Michael Cheika’s men’s best performance of recent years to put Wasps to the sword and Brian O’Driscoll’s two tries had a touch of magic about them.

Despite the 41–11 scoreline, the worst aspect of Wasps’ loss was that they were genuinely in the game at the halfway point. As the teams walked towards half time oranges, there was a real feeling that Wasps had manfully weathered the Dublin storm and that from somewhere within the black and yellow army would stride a general to lead them to a glorious victory.

Sadly that man never came.

If the season is to be recovered, that man needs to step forward sooner rather than later.

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