Robinson crocked on his Adams Park debut

8:36am Saturday 30th August 2008

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Wasps 17, Llanelli Scarlets 20.

MARK Robinson's home debut lasted a little over ten minutes as Wasps went down to a last-gasp defeat in their final warm-up match before next weekend's Guinness Premiership opener against London Irish at Twickenham.

The scrum half, who had only come on as a second half replacement for try scorer Eoin Reddan hobbled off 11 minutes later and spent the rest of his night with his left leg wrapped in an ice pack.

And he could only look on in angst as Wasps turned a half time lead into a full time deficit with Cieron Thomas' dramatic drop goal in the third minute of injury time sealing victory for the Welshmen.

It is Wasps' second successive defeat of their pre-season, following on from their reversal at Edinburgh last week with their only success a win on French soil away at Dax.

Earlier Mark Van Gisbergen's three first half penalties and a try from Eoin Reddan had given the Men in Black a 14-8 interval lead with Mark Jones' injury time try narrowing the deficit for the Welshmen.

But Wasps could not pull away and Scarlets kept chipping away in the second half and forcing Wasps back.

Stephen Jones's kick brought them to within three points as Wasps were becoming increasingly ragged as the Welsh side sensed they could overthrow Wasps lead for the first time in the match.

They levelled with a Cieron Thomas penalty with ten minutes left.

And Wasps almost lost it with a Van Gisbergen fumble on his own 22 leading to a near thing on the Wasps line with just two minutes on the clock.

Wasps survived that and survived again when Thomas pushed a 22 metre penalty wide wide on the stroke of full time.

He loooked incredulous at his failure but he made up for it and gave the Scarlets a deserved victory with with his late drop goal from 30 metres.