Gerry Thornleytalks to London Wasps' scrumhalf ahead of Saturday's pivotal Heineken Cup game against Leinster at Twickenham
THE BENEFITS of a mid-season break have long been extolled by the IRFU’s fitness director Dr Liam Hennessy amongst others. French clubs have reaped the rewards of a regular refreshing Christmas break, something that has happened again this season. So when Wasps’ game at Bath was called off an hour before kick-off on Saturday it probably did the Londoners no harm at all.
“I felt like a million dollars when I woke up this morning,” admitted Wasps’ scrumhalf Eoin Reddan. “The last time I had a weekend off was August 17th,” he recalls, which was 21 weeks ago, and adds in James Brown mode: “I feel good.” You forget how much of a treadmill rugby can be.
Though still not exactly flowing, Wasps appear to have turned a corner of sorts with five wins from their last six games. And no less than Leinster, this Saturday’s pivotal Pool Two encounter at Twickenham will go some way to defining their own season.
The club yesterday confirmed that 25,000 tickets have been sold for what they are marketing as the Battle of the Capitals between the reigning English and Magners League champions, which means only 5,000 tickets remain.
You also presume that all Ian McGeechan and Shaun Edwards would have to have done yesterday – were it even necessary – was insert the DVD of Leinster’s 41-11 win over Wasps last October at the RDS, press play and leave the squad alone for the rest of the week.
Reddan gives an inkling of the hurt that still lingers in High Wycombe from that game when talking of them letting themselves down but also says: “You wouldn’t want to be getting angry from the Monday before a game or bringing too much emotion into this game.”
More pertinent, he reckons, is the experience which Wasps have accumulated of big cup games over recent years. “A lot of people here like them and look forward to them and so there won’t be too much difference from any other knock-out game we’ve been involved in just because of what happened in the past. I’m not saying it (revenge) doesn’t help us but at the same time Leinster will draw great confidence from that game as well.”
“Things don’t go well all the time and a measure of a team is turning it round, copping that bad momentum and turning it round, and learning from experience. We’re very dynamic here. Just because we win one year doesn’t mean that’s the way to win every year. At the start of the year players didn’t perform well enough and a lot of harsh lessons were learnt – maybe not quickly enough – but we’ve produced some form since then. Nothing crazy, nothing amazing, but at the end of the day I don’t think form comes into these games as much as people think.”
Reddan forecasts that it’s going to come down to who can cope with the pressure on the day the best.
Discussing the theory that Wasps struggled to cope with the game’s changed parameters, most obviously so when lamentably losing the aerial kicking battle at the RDS, Reddan has noticed how players have benefited from an injury-enforced watching brief. “Players are learning a lot about the referees and the kick-chase game; all those things that have changed slightly and which we didn’t adapt to.”
“Maybe because we were successful at the end of last season we hung on to what we did a little bit more than teams who hadn’t achieved at the end of last season,” he adds.
Reddan doesn’t believe that Wasps’ improved run of results will count for much this Saturday, though concedes that if only because of increased levels of self-confidence they were “starting a match week at a better point than we would have been against Leinster the last day”.
Wasps have also benefited from Leinster leaving the door ajar in Pool Two courtesy of their defeat in Castres. “Castres are tough this season, because they’ve had a tough start to the season and their management were under pressure, so when that happens to a team they sometimes win games you think they wouldn’t win and that week – when they’d announced a change of coach at the end of the season – a lot of emotion came into it. They had to stand up and show what the club meant to them, and it was a different Castres that night and unfortunately for Leinster it was a Heineken Cup week.”
Wasps accumulate trophies the way stamp collectors collect, well, stamps. It is their raison d’etre. This is Reddan’s fourth season at the club, and in that time and for the two seasons before that they have never gone an entire campaign without laying their hands on a trophy, winning four Premierships, two Heineken Cups and one Challenge Cup in what is probably the most successful era in the club’s history.
There is, assuredly, a recognition within the club that this Saturday’s game is the key to their best shot at winning silverware this season, although it doesn’t appear to be something that is putting pressure on the players.
“The one good thing about here is that you’re not forced to put your head up and look around when there’s no need to. I don’t think there’s any need to do that at the moment. I think you fight for everything until there’s nothing left to fight for and that’s on every front. It would be dangerous to pick and choose a little bit; I think you just need to go for it on all fronts. They go hand in hand.”
The former Munster scrumhalf could have been lining out for Leinster this season but he’s enjoying his rugby now and, needless to say, has no regrets about not taking up the offer to join his opponents this Saturday.
“I’m not someone who dwells on things, I just carry on with whatever decisions I make. Leinster are a great club and it will be a massive game this week. I enjoy it here, I love playing with Wasps and living in Richmond. I enjoy my rugby but when you’re finished training at 3.00 that’s it. It’s obviously a very small part of life in London and I can switch off.”
But, as he knows, it won’t be such a small part this week.
