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LAWRENCE Dallaglio is determined to ensure that his final game in Wycombe is not his final game ever.

The Wasps captain will run out at Adams Park one last time on Sunday at 2pm, when the men in black and gold host Bath in the Guinness Premiership semi-finals.

The prize is a place in the Grand Final at Twickenham on Saturday, May 31 and, while he wouldn't say so himself, the home of English rugby is a fitting stage for his final bow.

He said: "I don't want to get too wrapped up in what I'm hoping for.

"When you join Wasps it is about winning trophies. Everyone has that ambition, whether you're in your last season after 18 years or in your first season.

"As a club, Wasps will continue to win when I've left and hopefully we'll continue to win until then."

If Wasps do beat Bath and then see off the winners of either Gloucester or Leicester a fortnight later, it would be Dallaglio's fifth domestic title since his debut for the club back in September 1993.

He said: "It's been a monumental effort this season, one of our biggest.

"We were on the back foot after the World Cup, but we've hung in there."

And Dallaglio thinks he can identify the part of the season that defined Wasps as semi-finalists when they looked like ending among the also rans.

He said: "It's been a great squad effort and the coaches will probably agree the crucial period was during the Six Nations, when we played Quins, Bristol and London Irish and won all three games when we were without our top, top players."

Wasps secured a home semi-final on the final day of the regular season, when they destroyed Leeds with six tries to collect the bonus point that took them just above Bath into second place.

But it came after a stuttering start which left Wasps 9-0 down after 15 minutes.

Dallaglio said: "The start wasn't in the script, I can assure you, and if we start like that in any of our two remaining games we won't be coming off the pitch as winners.

"But we know that. We showed great composure to recover from that and remain unruffled by it, which is the sign of a championship side.

"But the difference this year has been our ability to go on the road and win away from home.

"We've had to really fight and get some away wins. We've won at Leicester, we've won at Bath, we've won at London Irish, we've won at Newcastle.

"Now we've won at Leeds and I can't say we're not delighted to get a home semi-final.

"No-one's won an away semi-final yet, so we've got the advantage and I'm not going to try and argue that we haven't.

"But we've earned that, there was no luck involved. We got bonus points in our last two games so we've earned it the hard way."

And so to Bath. Wasps beat them home and away in the middle of the season and are the bookmakers favourites not just to beat them again, but to win the whole thing.

Dallaglio said: "This is what it's all about, winning trophies.

"You work the whole season for these last two weeks and although it's been tough playing three games in a week, you ask any player in the Premiership and they'd rather be in it."

10:01am Friday 16th May 2008

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