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Too much of a Goode thing for Wasps
Wasps 24, Leicester 34.
TROPHY chances are running out for Wasps after they were beaten in a high-class EDF Energy Cup semi-final by familiar foes Leicester Tigers at the Millennium Stadium this afternoon.
After failing to progress from the Heineken Cup group stages and now bowing out the EDF, they will have to come from behind in the Guinness Premiership if they want to win a trophy for a sixth year in a row and avoid a barren campaign in Lawrence Dallaglio's sign-off season.
Wasps were good this afternoon, but Leicester were better and the performance of the two number tens was the match in microcosm: Danny Cipriani scored two tries but for once the darling of English rugby was over-shadowed as the mercurial Andy Goode steered Tigers to victory with a faultless ten display.
Wasps must have thought they'd dodged a bullet by the 20-minute mark. They had barely touched the ball or got out their own half but were trailing only 3-0 and Leicester's frustration was obvious when, after pinning Wasps back but again finding their route blocked, they resorted to a 35m drop-goal attempt that sailed harmlessly wide.
And when Wasps did finally break the shackles, they did so full of menace. James Haskell's pace off the mark nearly took him over and from their first attack, and from their second Cipriani arced around Dan Hipkiss before wrong-footing Johne Murphy to score the game's first try.
His own conversion made it 7-3 after 22 minutes and although Goode responded with another penalty soon afterwards Wasps were at it again after half an hour; scrum half Eoin Reddan burst out from behind a scrum 70m from Tigers' line, but one offload and about eight seconds later Paul Sackey was diving over in the corner to make it 12-6.
Cipriani's conversion hit a post though, and the match turned.
Goode himself hauled Tigers back into it with a try and conversion to give them a 13-12 lead at the interval, and shortly after it his quick-thinking gave Leicester breathing space.
His tap-penalty caught the Wasps defence flat-footed and Alesana Tuilagi was the extra man on the right wing to go over.
Goode made no mistake with the conversion and a sign of the changing times came after 53 minutes, when Cipriani pulled a relatively simply penalty well wide.
Director of rugby Ian McGeechan responded by bringing on Dave Walder at fly-half, with Cipriani shifting to full-back and Josh Lewsey moving to the wing in place of David Doherty.
It made little difference. With two minutes of the reshuffle Wasps fallibility at the line-out was exposed as Leicester stole their ball, Goode chipped and chased and Hipkiss provided the supporting run.
Goode's conversion left Wasps with a mountain to climb, 27-12 down.
But going down with a whimper is not the Wasps way. With 20 minutes left an audacious piece of skill from Cipriani, joining the line to bat Haskell's pass over his head first time, created time and space for Sackey to score again.
For a moment the impossible looked possible - but only for a moment.
After 67 minutes Hipkiss and Tuilagi pounded into the Wasps midfield to create a hole for Martin Castrogiovanni to chug through, and Goode's conversion stretched the lead out to 17 points again.
Cipriani did race over for a consolation try before the end, profiting from Sackey's burst, but it was too late to change the outcome and if Wasps want to get something from this season they will need to respond next weekend - when it's Tigers again at Welford Road.
8:54pm Saturday 22nd March 2008
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