WASPS director of rugby Dai Young defended his team selection after the defeat against Sale, insisting that every player left out had to be.

Joe Launchbury, Elliot Daly and James Haskell were among the big names left out of the squad, while Matt Mullan, Joe Simpson and Lorenzo Cittadini were on the bench with Bradely Davies, Andrea Masi and Sailosi Tagicakibau.

Sale boss Steve Diamond said: "They chose to rest and rotate their squad and thought they could beat us with that.

“I'd love to be able to do that. But Sale and Wasps have been pretty similar in recent years and I think you have to pick your best team.

“There is nothing more pleasing than beating Wasps at home."

However, Young said he’d have picked the same team regardless of the opposition.

He said: “We’re in two tough tournaments this season. Last season we were in the Amlin where you could rest players at some stages.

“Every change I made was a necessary change. If this was the last game of the season one or two of the players that didn’t play could probably have played.

“But the reality is if they’d played today they’d have maybe been out for three or four games after.

“It certainly wasn’t a case of resting players for rest’s sake. Every player that was rested needed that rest otherwise they’d have broken down.

“We certainly didn't feel like this was going to be an easy game; no matter who we played today that would have been our starting team."

Meanwhile, Young expects Launchbury, Haskell and Daly to be available to face Bath at Adams Park on Sunday.

He said: “Joe Launchbury has a bit of a neck strain and is probably 85 per cent right. We wanted to give him an extra week to get 100 per cent.

“James Haskell has been battered. He hasn’t trained all week, and we all know Elliot has had foot problems through overuse so we have to be careful with his workload too.

“We had to rest them. My priority is to get results, but also to look after players.

“It’s better to give them a week off to fully recover than see them on the sidelines for six to eight weeks.”