By Sparkie
November 22 2002

Wasps rarely seem to have good results in November and this year is not proving an exception. The latest visitors to fort Adams Park are Sale. They would like us to call them Sharks but, frankly, that label does not suit them. Sale Sharks or just Sale please, if the marketing honchos are listening. What's in a name? We added London, a sensible move for geographical reasons. We could add "& Wycombe" to the tag now, too. But we are still the only professional outfit to train within London's postal districts.

Sale present another stiff challenge to our unbeaten home record. They are a bit like Gloucester but without quite the same dominance in the pack. Their backs are speedy and alsmost as incisive as Glaw's too. Sale are not frightened to take us on on our own patch either. Of the six games at Loftus Road they beat us on two occasions and made us look very ordinary to boot.

A week ago they made Sorries look very ordinary for a large part of the game under the Friday night floodlights. Coach Jim Mallinder has worked on the team's shortcomings knowing that he'll be short of Jason Robinson and Bryan Redpath again. Also out is his playmaker-in-chief, Charlie Hodgson, their top points scorer against us. sadly they'll also be missing Alex Sanderson for those of us eager to see him take on LBND once more.

Last week's team was: Going; Cueto, Harris (Deane, 74'), Bond, Hanley; Baxendell, Walshe; Yates (Thorp, 54'), Marais, Turner (Stewart, 54'), Jones (Fullarton, 54'), Schofield, Davies, Pinkerton, Anglesea. Hanley was the destroyer, scoring two tries -- also on the scoresheet were Harris, Pinkerton and Going with Walshe adding 12 points from kicks.

Expect to see a rash of replacements after the 50 minute mark as the Pilchards aim to keep their high pressure, running game on the boil. Key match ups that Warren Gatland will be keen to see Wasps come out on top will be: Going versus CO; Cueto vs. Teflon; Bond of Oz vs. Sonic or Denzil?; out-of-position Baxendell vs. Kinga; Jones the other vs. Shawsie; Volls vs. Pinkerton and Anglesea vs. Scrivs.

Sale's away form is poor, a solitary draw at Leeds Tykes; a narrow defeat to a low scoring Bath team and comprehensive defeats to Newcastle and Glaws (44-8!). Hopefully Gats and Stan will have worked out the frustrations of losing to the Queens last weekend and we will witness a measured and controlled response right from the word go at Adams Park. We know our weaknesses, Pilchards' seem to be kicking in the absence of Charlie-boy, so no penalties Wasps -- defence is the key.

Previously:

19 May 2002   27-43   Heywood Road
16 Mar 2002   22-27   Heywood Road
16 Sep 2001   21-40   Loftus Road
14 Apr 2001   59-29   Heywood Road
26 Nov 2000   33-24   Loftus Road
30 Apr 2000   58- 5   Loftus Road
11 Sep 1999    8-16   Heywood Road
 8 May 1999   27-13   Heywood Road
22 Nov 1998   32-19   Loftus Road
18 Apr 1998   28-28   Heywood Road
 2 Nov 1997   22-38   Loftus Road
20 Apr 1997   36-10   Loftus Road
31 Aug 1996   33-31   Heywood Road
23 Mar 1996   25-16   Repton Avenue
30 Sep 1995   25-18   Heywood Road
 8 Apr 1995   17-12   Heywood Road
15 Oct 1994   52-22   Repton Avenue
12 Mar 1988   14- 6   Heywood Road

From: The Zurich Premiership website

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