How Wasps love their new home. After setting all sorts of records in their first game at the Ricoh Arena before Christmas they on Sunday administered a five-try hiding to the team, in theory at least, which was reckoned to be in contention with Dai Young’s side for a European place.
Wasps and Sale started the day in sixth and seventh places, separated only by points difference, but ended it light years apart. Add the attendance which was around three times higher than when these sides last met on Wasps territory at Adams Park and it was easy to understand the smile on Young’s face after the game
All week the director of rugby had warned about the abrasive threat of Sale – they had won the previous six meetings – only to concede: “We would have settled for that before the game. We were in charge in most aspects.
“You never get a complete performance but there were far more positives than negatives out there”, which was some understatement considering the game was effectively over by half-time and the bonus point in the bag after 45 minutes when Sale’s defence almost invited Joe Simpson in for his second try.
“We were given a good hiding,” said Sale’s director of rugby, Steve Diamond. “We weren’t at the races. We weren’t the normal abrasive side we are and they were brutal at the ruck and dominant when they got the ball. We didn’t deserve anything out of today.”
Wasps did and now lie fourth in the league and the next visitors to the Ricoh will be Leinster, the former champions in the Champions Cup when a packed stadium is expected.
Yesterday, in front of close on 16,000, Andy Goode started where he had left off in his man-of-the-match performance in front of 28,000 against London Irish, kicking for the corners and picking up the penalty which followed. However it was the more silky skills of Christian Wade which caught the eye.
As early as the first minute he had waltzed through the attempted tackles of Will Addison and David Seymour. In the eighth minute he made it count. Ben Jacobs put him away and by the time the Sale cover had worked out where he was going James Haskell was alongside the flying wing and accepted the scoring pass.
“I wouldn’t swap him for any other winger,” said Young when invited to support the growing “Wade for England” campaign. “He’s as good a finisher as anyone but sometimes he doesn’t get the credit for creating tries for others.”
That said, Wasps had 10 points on the board in 10 minutes and looked more than at home in their new stadium. The heavy Sale pack was pushed backwards and the full-back Rob Miller and the lock James Gaskell were showing their old club what they had lost, Miller doing a Wade up the right wing and Gaskell making himself a real nuisance at the lineout.
With Elliot Daly darting around mid-field, more scoring was inevitable and in the 21st minute it was the centre who timed his pass brilliantly to put the surprisingly mobile No8 Nathan Hughes through. Goode converted to make it 17-6 with only a quarter of the game gone and although Joe Ford landed a third penalty, it was the new Midlanders who displayed all the ambition, Daly just over-kicking a chip through intended for the left-wing, Tom Varndell.
Goode, Wade, Daly and Varndell came within a whisker of adding a third. However, the points kept coming, Goode adding a drop goal after the Wasps pack had come close to driving home a scrum.
On a bitter afternoon tailor-made for slippers and television, the new-found faithful were more than happy even before a touch of panto took hold. Attempting to get something back before half-time, Sale’s Mike Haley ran into a Wasps wall and was lifted off his feet by a combination of Bradley Davies and, to a much lesser extent, Wade.
Parallel to the ground, Haley remained that way for the best part of 20 seconds before Ashley Johnson performed the ritual of robbing the full-back and sending the scrum-half Simpson scuttling up the line. Goode converted and Wasps turned round at 27-9 with Simpson about to make things even worse.
Johnson completed the job from a rolling maul and it hardly mattered that the Sale lock Andrei Ostrikov was similarly bundled over when Wasps had Gaskell in the sin-bin.
Wasps Miller; Wade, Daly, Jacobs, Varndell (Leiua, 61); Goode (Lozowski, 56), Simpson (C Davies, 54); McIntyre ( Mullan, 61), Festuccia (Lindsay, 49), Cittadini (Swainston, 49), B Davies (Myall, 49), Gaskell, Johnson, Haskell (capt), Hughes (S Jones, 61).
Tries Haskell, Hughes, Simpson 2, Johnson. Cons Goode 5. Pen Goode. Drop goal Goode. Sin-bin Gaskell.
Sale Haley; Addison (Cusiter, 60), Leota, Jennings (Cueto, 50), Arscott; Ford (Cipriani, 50) Cliff; De Marchi (Lewis-Roberts, 49), Mamukashvili (Jones, 45) Cobilas (Harrison, 60), Hines (Mills, 60), Ostrikov, Lund (Beaumont, 45) Seymour (capt), Easter.
Try Ostrikov. Con Cipriani. Pens Ford 3 .
Referee G Garner (RFU). Attendance 15,343.
