Exiting Wasps coach Shaun Edwards bade a fond farewell to the club after Sunday's clash with Northampton.
Mallinder calls for his Saints to improve ahead of Munster clash
Exiting Wasps coach Shaun Edwards bade a fond farewell to the club in the wake of their Premiership clash with Northampton on Sunday.
Unfortunately, however, Wasps were unable to give their coach, who has spent a decade at the club, a winning send-off as they slipped to a 24-13 defeat at Adams Park.
Nevertheless, Edwards, who won seven major trophies with the club including two Heineken Cups, received a standing ovation from the 8,222 crowd after the match.
The 45-year-old, who named those 2004 and 2007 European triumphs as the highlight of his Wasps career, paid tribute to the men he had coached during his time in charge.
"The game of rugby is about the players, not the coaches," he said. "And I've had some magnificent players to coach during my 10 years here.
"For a club relatively small in stature to beat the big French and Irish teams and win the Heineken Cup twice was a tremendous effort."
Forward pass
As for the game itself, Wasps felt there had been a forward pass in the build-up to Northampton's opening try from Tongan prop Soane Tonga'uiha.
And, although director of rugby Dai Young admitted there had been questions over some of the decisions during the match, he refused to blame referee Tim Wigglesworth for the defeat.
"Take it back two or three steps before that and we got turned over twice which gave them that opportunity to be there," he said.
"I'm a big believer that you can only control what you can control and we have got to look at ourselves.
"It's no good looking for excuses elsewhere. You have to find a way to win and we didn't do that.
"The biggest grievance to us was the tackle area - how that was refereed or not refereed.
"Refereeing's not an easy job, otherwise everybody would be doing it. It's not fair to stand here and criticise. There's proper channels to do it and we're going to have to look at it if we feel there were mistakes made.
"On occasions we didn't help ourselves but I thought we were unlucky with a few calls. We got killed in the tackle area and it didn't help.
"First half we were the better team but we didn't build any score. Second half, Northampton had a really big first 20 minutes which got them in front."
Improvements
Northampton rugby director Jim Mallinder said his side needed to improve before they take on Munster in their Heineken Cup opener in Ireland on Saturday.
"We weren't brilliant today," he said. "We did enough to win but we'll probably need to do a little bit more if we're going to beat Munster next weekend.
"We conceded a sloppy try but generally our defence was quite good. But defensively, we gave away a few too many penalties.
"You've got to listen to the referee - and Mr Wigglesworth does things slightly differently - so you've got to work with him.
"We've now got on a bit of a roll and we're keen on keeping that momentum going. It's good to have threats all over the field, particularly when your props score in open play.
"To see Tonga'uiha finishing off a wide move and then to see Mujati running over backs is a pretty nice sight."
