Haskell: Wasps have the character to cope

9:09am Monday 1st September 2008

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ON the eve of the new Guinness Premiership season, James Haskell believes Wasps have the personalities to cope without Lawrence Dallaglio.

He said: "If you look at the squad we've got, Josh Lewsey, Simon Shaw - guys with strong personalities and opinions and the thing about Wasps which I've always said there's no egos or superstars.

"Obviously Lawrence was a little bit different he was always captain, always the figurehead.

"I don't want to be disrespectful to Lawrence, his absence, he finished at the end of the season, he had a great final season, had all the impact, he'll still be there behind the scenes but as soon as that season finished we moved on right away.

"Maybe in the middle of the season you might come back to me and look at our results and maybe say we didn't - but the way we've prepared and the attitude of all the players is really positive, we know who the leaders are, Lawrence has a certain je ne sais quoi about him, we may not have someone exactly like that around, but there's a lot of hard work been done and a real good work ethic at Wasps and everyone is fighting for their place in the team.

"I'm not going to start using quotes like Wasps are going to be the champions, but I do genuinely feel we have a quality squad of players that could cope."