Rugby Union: Wasps gain from the pain

LAST SEASON'S Tetley's Bitter Cup final is still too sharply etched in the memory for Wasps to be able to consign the comprehensive defeat at the hands of Saracens into the far recesses of the club archives.

Indeed their progress to the semi-finals of this year's competition - they play Gloucester at Loftus Road this afternoon - has served only to remind them of how their London rivals blitzed them and took the sting out of the business end of their operation on that fateful afternoon at Twickenham.

Nigel Melville, the Wasps director of rugby - and more recently coach following the mid-season change around which saw Rob Smith move sideways to take charge of the development side of things and mastermind the new academy the club are setting up - attempted to see last year's thrashing in a positive light, although he could not fully disguise the hurt.

"It is still fresh in my mind," he admitted last week. "It is very painful to remember. But I think the achievement of getting to the final needs to be appreciated, because it had been a tough year.

"And if we are honest we would say that the final was a game too far. We had had to confront the spectre of relegation in the league, and we had just got ourselves out of trouble, then along came the final when we had to compete against a team who were on fire, and Michael Lynagh and Philippe Sella in stunning form. It was still a great occasion, though."

So now there is this year. Wasps are once again jostling with the leading bunch in the Allied Dunbar Premiership and also remain in the frame for a place in Europe, but they really would relish a Cup triumph too.

Gloucester's away form in the league has been so woeful that victory today should be there for the taking. But, disturbingly for the club, Wasps have been installed as favourites by many, not only to overcome Gloucester, but also to hold aloft the cup itself at headquarters on 15 May. Melville, however, is far too wise to fall into the trap of letting his team believe that success is in the bag. "In the semi-finals the formbook goes out of the window. For a start, although Gloucester have not been winning that much away from home, they have won four of the nine previous semi-finals away from Kingsholm."

No wonder that Melville is wary. "We know what to expect," he said. "They are a tough side to beat at the best of times, they are going to be a dogged team. Fortunately, we have been playing well in recent weeks."

As for his own, more onerous, role Melville insisted it is no real burden. "I had been doing a fair amount of coaching with the backs alongside Rob anyway," he explains. "There is so much going on on the development front with the academy opening next year, and our English players need to work with the best coaches, so that they get the perfect base on which to build. Rob was ideal for the job of overseeing that."

The academy will reinforce the philosophy the club has as regards English qualified players. Melville, a former captain of England, is a fierce patriot when it comes to rugby. "At Wasps we have made an effort to ensure that there is a strong English contingent at the club because that gives longevity to the squad," he said.

"There will be no swooping on the transfer market after the World Cup. We will not be looking to sign 28- or 29-year-old overseas players with a couple of seasons left in them. That would be like going back to square one and would do nothing for the morale of the youngsters trying to come through.

"The present first-team squad have grown up together. We have four or five players involved in the World Cup, and they will leave behind them a strong squad of young players. These are very exciting times for us." Even more so if they win the Cup.