The struggling London club are having to face up to some harsh realities on and off the field as they prepare to face Leicester
London Wasps face Leicester at Welford Road on Saturday. It was an encounter that only a few years ago was one of the highlights of the season: between them, they won the Premiership title nine times in the first 10 seasons of the new millennium, but Wasps make the journey north one place off the bottom of the table, having lost their past five league matches.
The London side won the Premiership in 2008, beating Leicester in the play?off final. They used to be a club that punched well above their financial weight, holding on to players like Lawrence Dallaglio, who turned down lucrative offers to move elsewhere, because of the culture they established at the club and the promise of silverware they could offer to players, something that has been taken on by Saracens.
Since then, Wasps have lost a virtual team of international players: Dallaglio, Rapha�l Iba�ez, Phil Vickery, Simon Shaw, Tom Palmer, James Haskell, Joe Worsley, Josh Lewsey, Fraser Waters, Paul Sackey, Mark van Gisbergen and Danny Cipriani have either retired or moved on, and Tom Rees has been blighted by long-term injuries.
The club is up for sale but the owner, Steve Hayes, has struggled to find any takers, with Wasps losing a couple of millions pounds a year and having to stay at Adams Park, where the average Premiership attendance this season is 6,500. Hayes lost patience when planning permission for a new ground on the outskirts of Wycombe was turned down, and a team that in the 2000s claimed the Heineken Cup twice and the league four times, is now more concerned with staying in the Premiership than winning it.
Wasps are 10 points above the bottom club, Newcastle, their opponents on the final day of the season, but their next two matches are Leicester away and Saracens at home. They have already beaten both sides this season, when the World Cup was being staged, but since England's interest in that tournament ended, their only Premiership victory came at Worcester.
"We are in a dog-fight, for sure, but there is a long way to go in the season," said the Wasps director of rugby, David Young, who took charge in the summer, a few months before Shaun Edwards left as head coach by mutual consent. "I don't buy the argument that any team is too good to go down and we are not naive enough to think it could not be us. It's a tough time, but we are all in it together and there is a lot of work to do both on and off the pitch and there is a long way to go. We've got some really talented guys to come back in over the coming weeks and that will be a great boost."
Young, who joined from Cardiff Blues where he spent his final years battling against budgetary constraints, says that it is unfair to judge the current Wasps side with the team Dallaglio led, which won nine trophies between 2000 and 2008.
"There needs to be a bit of a reality check about where Wasps are at the moment," Young said. "This club has a great history and I respect that but it's frustrating to be asked the same old questions about how a team which won the Premiership four years ago can be struggling now. The answer is simple: we are not that team ? we are an entirely new group of players and staff and while we have been changing, the game is continuing to move on. I don't know if everyone fully understands that. There is more money in the Aviva Premiership than ever before and the teams who have a secure long-term financial footing are faring best.
"I know supporters are disappointed and frustrated with the results of the past few weeks and I hope they stay right behind the team because this season was never going to be easy. I said that when I joined: I signed a four-year contract because I saw this as a long-term project. We have struggled with injuries and it is taking its toll. We did not take our opportunities against Worcester on Monday and we will have to sharpen up at Leicester. We have to keep on working."
Sale won the Premiership in 2005 before losing their best players for financial reasons and quickly found themselves mired in relegation scraps. They have picked up this season under Steve Diamond, the executive director of sport, and Tony Hanks, the head coach who was released by Wasps last season. Diamond is to combine his rugby role with that of chief executive, as the Sharks look to boost their supporter-base and generate greater income. "It is hard to compare the side now with the one a year ago," said Diamond, who is showing Wasps the way to survive in the Premiership.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jan/03/wasps-reality-check-sale-book
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