Walder inspires Wasps win

Wasps inexorable march up the table continued with a 22-16 win over London Irish that dealt a severe blow to the Exiles' play-off hopes.

As so often, Wasps' victory was built on the foundations of a muscular defensive showing and also an inspired performance from Dave Walder who set up his side's only try for former Exile Riki Flutely and kicked 17 points.

Irish were on the board first courtesy of a Peter Hewat try and managed another in the second period through Sailosi Tagicakibau, but were punished for their indiscipline by the boot of Walder.

The triumph means Wasps still harbour realistic ambitions of a top-two finish, but Irish, despite their losing bonus point, look to have left themselves too much to do to force their way into the top four over the next few weeks.

In front of a new Guinness Premiership record crowd of 23,709 at the Madejski Stadium, the visitors made a sluggish start with a fumble from Joe Worsley as he attempted to collect the kick-off setting the tone for a nervous opening phase.

Irish took full advantage with Hewat touching down inside two minutes, the full back timing his burst into the line superbly and holding off a tackle before cutting inside Fraser Waters to touch down.

Eoghan Hickey missed the relatively simple conversion allowing Walder to reduce the deficit to two points with the first of his five penalties on the quarter hour mark.

Hickey responded in kind to stretch the lead to 8-3 but, despite making much of the running, it was the hosts who went in behind at the interval with Walder adding further penalties on 26 and 39 minutes with Irish having been caught offside.

However, while somewhat fortunate to go in ahead, it was Wasps who were much the livelier on the restart with the Exiles indebted to fabulous try-saving tackles from first Juan Manuel Leguizamon on Josh Lewsey and then Topsy Ojo on David Doherty.

Crucial try

They turned out to be temporary reprieves though as Wasps scored what proved their crucial try on 47 minutes. The outstanding Walder stepped past a tackler before setting off on a break towards the Irish line and offloaded to Flutely who had an unopposed run home.

Walder slotted the conversion and extended the lead to 19-9 when he landed another well-struck penalty just before the hour.

Rather shell-shocked to find themselves so far behind, Irish rather lost their cool and both sides were lucky to retain their full complement after an unseemly brawl that appeared to have its origins in a scuffle between Exiles hooker David Paice and Wasps substitute Joe Ward.

The incident seemed to somewhat distract Wasps who had been unshakeable defensively up to that point, but they were soon caught flat-footed by a jinking burst from speedster Ojo who, having cut a swathe through midfield, had the presence of mind to offload to opposite wing Tagicakibau who coasted over in the corner.

Again Hickey failed to add the extras and once again the immaculate Walder punished him as he took on and landed a long-range penalty to all but kill the game with just five minutes left after Ojo was spotted handling the ball in the ruck.

Hickey kicked a similarly impressive penalty just moments later, but Wasps saw out the remaining 90 seconds or so to seal an important win and maintain their ever-growing momentum.