The extent of their problems was shown by their league position (bottom) at the start of the day.

Irish were missing some players too – Catt, Richards, Tiesi and Leguizamon all bravely defending their countries’ honour. Shane and Faan were out through injury – the latter would prove an expensive absence. However, again, questions of commitment arise. Your correspondent turned out despite a potentially match-ending sore thumb (notebook-holding hand), sustained in a nasty pistachio-opening accident in the England v France celebrations.

So Irish had reason to be confident going into the game.

But a dreadful error count (mostly unforced) undid some good work, and parity in most areas of the game was wasted as Wasps were handed possession, territory and scoring opportunities over and over again. They took all three, and romped home easy winners. Irish started the day in seventh, and finished it below Wasps in tenth.

Half-close the eyes, and the game could look like the All Blacks v Ireland, on World Cup semi-final weekend – and the error-strewn performance from the white-and-green team that was so far below their potential made the illusion even more realistic.

When Bob Casey ran out on his own, it looked for one awful moment as though he was the only one who’d bothered to turn up, but it marked his 100th appearance for Irish, and the rest of the team followed eventually. The afternoon’s first planned move went disastrously wrong, as hardly anyone actually congratulated him, so poor Bob had to jog down the line of Irish players patting each of THEM on the shoulder, not the other way round.

The attendance was 6,600 – from the look of it, Wasps controversially work out the attendance from the attendance, rather than the number of season ticket holders times the square of the captain’s age plus the amount of Guinness sold, as we do. Adams Park is surely the ground with the best view, but the most uncomfortable seats in the Premiership. I’ve never known seats that actually MAKE you slouch.

The game started badly. Eoghan Hickey kicked off deep, Wasps replied, and Bob took the resulting line-out. Irish went offside in the maul, and van Gisbergen knocked the long penalty over for a 3-0 lead in the second minute.

An identical Hickey restart led to a much poorer return kick, and the next Irish line was well into Wasps’ half. Bob took it again, and a lovely break and mazy run by Hickey took him to the 22. He was tap-tackled, and the ref blew straight away for holding on. So that was the end of that bright idea.

As often seems to happen, the first couple of minutes encapsulated the afternoon. Irish presented Wasps with an opportunity for points, which they took, and then created a bright move that was spoiled by a silly error.

Irish had a chance to atone with a mid-range penalty three minutes later. The touch judges looked in doubt about Hickey’s kick, but the flags stayed down.

Things continued to look salvageable for Irish with another penalty, when after a bit of kick-swapping, a poor Wasps clearance gave Irish an attacking line-out in the 22. A clean take, but Wasps came around offside at the ruck, and this time Hickey drilled the short-range kick for 3-3, after a worrying hesitation by the (scarily identical) touch judges.

There was a lot of kicking, and Riki Flutey started showing the poise and assurance that I’ve got a nasty feeling we’re going to miss this season. He seemed to be first receiver most of the time, despite being number twelve (and if “first receiver” sounds too voguish, just be thankful I haven’t written “counter-rucking”).

Two Wasps penalties in quick succession led to a line-out inside our 22. From a short throw, flanker Webber made a break. The ball was whipped out to Doherty on the wing with the line at his mercy, but the pass was in front of him, and went into touch. With hindsight, that could have been the easiest opportunity for a Wasps bonus point.

Wasps’ first try followed. The move started brightly for Irish, with a clever line-out on half-way from a Hickey penalty. The front half of the line peeled away very early, and Bob tapped the ball down to Kennedy on the loop, who clattered into the Wasps forwards. The ruck went horribly wrong, though, the ball went loose, and Wasps pounced on it. Skivington was suddenly in the clear, raced through and slid early so he couldn’t be tackled. An easy conversion made the score 10-3, Wasps taking the lead for the second and final time.

Irish secured more good possession (the scrum looked solid under pressure) as the half neared its end, but kept wasting it with knock-ons and forward passes. Irish stole a Wasps line-out in their own half, zipped the ball down the line, and passed it neatly into touch.

Another Irish penalty led to Hickey’s first major mistake. His punts are enormous, which is lovely, but they don’t always go where they’re supposed to. He missed touch, van Gisbergen didn’t (he doesn’t), and Irish knocked on from the resulting line-out and good possession (stop me if you’ve heard this one before).

Wasps launched a garryowen from the solid scrum, and Delon lost out in the aerial contest on our 22. It was tapped back to Cipriani, who raced diagonally – almost sideways – into masses of space on his left. The sprinting defence couldn’t catch him, and he scored in the corner. Van Gisbergen missed the difficult conversion, leaving the score at 15-3. Yet again, silly mistakes in perfectly good Irish possession had gifted points to Wasps.

The lowest point of the Irish afternoon came a few minutes before half-time. A sloppy Wasps line-out on half-way went straight to Bob – he didn’t even jump for it, the ball just plopped into his meaty hands. The Irish got a dynamic move together, Mapasua broke, raced up to the 22, and fed Shabbo in a gap. He was 15m out with nobody near him, when he collapsed in obvious pain clutching his hamstring.

The first time Irish cut out the mistakes led to a certain try, and this happened! He looked in agony, and was half-carried off. In hindsight, it came at a crucial time in the game. It’s impossible to say if it was lack of physical condition, poor warm-up (that seems unlikely over half an hour in, on a warm afternoon) or just bad luck. Whatever the reason, in the cold light of day, of course you have to feel for someone who spent so long out injured last season. At the time, though, all we could think about was the certain (and I mean certain) try that had gone west right before our eyes.

Bad luck was to befall Wasps too. From the resulting scrum (that seemed harsh - he collapsed in agony, of course he dropped the ball!), Wasps tight head Barnard didn’t get up, and he too was obviously in a lot of pain. He was stretchered off. I don’t want to go on about this, but if these people want to know what real pain is, they should try getting a bit of broken pistachio shell under their thumbnail! Doesn’t stop some of us doing our duty.

Jeremy Staunton came on for Shabbo, against his old club. Nick Adams came on for Barnard.

Irish continued the new error-free game plan for the rest of the half. We had a penalty on the 22, which the Wasps crowd didn’t quite understand, bless them. Hickey kicked it very high, confusing the touch judges. One flag went up, the other stayed down. The ref gave it, thank goodness. I’ve no idea if it went over.

Wasps could sniff half-time from the restart, and started slowing things down. They ambled up to a line-out, which worked well when they finally got around to it, but Irish got the scrum after a bit of Wasps driving play, when Leo was caught in midfield.

The match clock ticked to zero as the scrum had to be reset a couple of times, but ref Maybank allowed it. Hodgson broke from the base, Declan got into the 22, and the whistle went for another Irish penalty. Hickey stuck it over for a 15-9 half-time score.

Irish were lucky with the scrum decision, but the ref was perfectly within his rights to call it. Anyway, it served Wasps right for time-wasting. A couple of nearby Wasps fans, irate that he hadn’t blown for half-time, repeatedly used language that’s totally unacceptable at a rugby match (with loads of children around our area). They didn’t realise the ref’s in charge of the clock, not the other way around. I was delighted that they were shouted down by surrounding home fans – well done, chaps, you’re a credit to your club.

The prognosis at half-time wasn’t all that bad. We’d had half an hour of unforced mistakes, but then cut them out, and really imposed ourselves on the game for the last ten minutes. We’d kept up with Wasps on the scoreboard, and but for one bit of terrible luck could even have had an undeserved half-time lead. If the second half started as the first had finished, the game could have been completely different. Irish just needed to keep their upward trajectory going.

But.

The teams swapped kicks from Flutey’s restart, and Irish had a scrum from a crooked Wasps throw. Wasps mounted a huge surge at the scrum, and shoved us off the ball. It was whipped out to the wing, and Voyce screamed through the surprised back line for a superb try. Van Gisbergen got the conversion.

Worse was to come, as Hickey’s next enormo-error saw the restart thumped into touch-in-goal, Wasps drove the ball from the scrum to our 22, and picked up a penalty for diving over. Suddenly from an optimistic half-time, we were looking at a yawning 25-9, after just four minutes of the second half.
We were back to our old tricks. A promising break came to nothing when Mapasua fumbled a bad pass. We stole two Wasps line-outs in very quick succession, won a penalty at the second, and wasted the lot when Hickey walloped it dead again. Wasps kicked straight out from the resulting scrum, and a promising Irish back move from the line-out ended in… can you guess? An unforced knock-on. Did you guess right?

Things seemed to get worse (but didn’t really) in the 17th minute, when Topsy was yellow-carded. Haskell picked up at the base of a scrum and went to a packed blind-side, feeding Flutey. He made a lovely break, but Topsy held Voyce (I think) back, and was sent to the bin. Wasps looked to have scored a try from the penalty, but there was a forward pass, thankfully.

Irish finally seemed to have given up the kicking game as a bad job, and started running out of defence. It was all very ponderous, though, and didn’t really get anywhere.

Several replacements followed. Hickey was replaced by Warren Fury. Staunton was now at fly-half, Fury at outside centre. Roche came on for Thorpe, and Steffon was replaced permanently (after an earlier blood bin) by Phil Murphy, who now played at number eight.

Wasps nearly scored again on the hour, after more good work from Haskell, a miss-pass to Voyce and a great outside break by Cipriani, but he passed forwards to van Gisbergen. The crowd didn’t like it (and were still chuntering about it after the game), but take it from me, I was in line and it was forwards. It looked backwards because Cipriani and van Gisbergen were shifting, and it went behind the latter. But you may put the minds of any Wasps fans you know at rest on this matter.

Irish finally crossed the Wasps line four minutes later. Wasps turned an Irish defensive scrum, but we just managed to get the ball out in time. Tagicakibau broke out, and some good picking and driving took us into Wasps’ half. We had a penalty advantage at the ruck, but didn’t need it, as Delon produced a superb in-and-out break, and was tap-tackled too late to prevent his sliding over the line. Staunton, now taking the kicks, missed the conversion, leaving the score at 25-14.

Topsy returned shortly afterwards, meaning we won the 14-man period 5-0.

The great work of the try was, of course, undone immediately, as Wasps broke from a scrum, and Fury was obviously offside at a ruck, giving van Gisbergen an easy kick for 28-14 (the final score). Why he kicked was a bit of a mystery, though, as the match was pretty safe, and bonus points don’t grow on trees.

Wasps wasted another bonus chance straight away, as Cipriani made a horrible horlicks of a four-on-one overlap, by being too greedy, running across his team-mates to the touchline, and passing back inside far too late.

Staunton’s kicking was noticeably shorter than Hickey’s, but also safer. We had plenty more possession, but made plenty more mistakes too. A penalty kicked to the corner and some good driving play were wasted by a sloppy pick-and-drop.

The last eight or so minutes were just more of the same errors. Bob and Reddan were both yellow-carded fairly harshly, in what was a clean game. Maybe the ref was getting bored. Anyway, it didn’t make much difference. The period of errors in the first half (not at the end, we’d lost by then) and that four-minute horror show at the start of the second were what killed us.

As for Wasps, to produce a solid display without those eight players – read those names at the top again – must be a tremendous boost for the months ahead.

Of course, on the upside, everyone has bad days, and maybe that’s all this was. Maybe.

My on-field man of the match was the criminally underrated Skivington (also the official MotM, but I said it first, honestly!), but if I had a trophy to present I’d give it to the Wasps fans who shouted down the foul-mouthed idiots.

So that was it. The game ended with a whimper, as a final Wasps try attempt ended in their being driven into touch, and we were left to shuffle out to the strains of “I Don’t Feel Like Dancing” – quite.

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