Leinster 6-41 London Wasps
Leinster suffered a heavy defeat to London Wasps in a pre-season friendly at Donnybrook on Friday night.
The Blues shipped five tries after the break, having led for a brief period before half time after two penalties from Ian Madigan had cancelled out Tom Varndell’s early try for the visitors.
New Leinster coach Josef Schmidt made a host of changes at half-time and Wasps eased to a comfortable victory in the end thanks to second half tries from Ben Jacobs, Richard Haughton (2), Mark van Gisbergen and Christian Wade.
Luke Fitzgerald played a half on his first appearance since injuring his knee on international duty in November, while new signings Isaac Boss and Heinke van der Merwe also featured.
Commenting after the game, Schmidt felt that the chance to look at different members of the squad, rather than the result, was the most important thing on the night.
“The result was never going to be the most important thing, so we had an opportunity to look at a number of guys and some of them put their hands up (for selection),†he said.
“Wasps are a pretty experienced side with a number of England internationals and we knew that it was going to be a tough test. It was good for Sean (O’Brien) and Luke (Fitzgerald) to get 40 minutes each. I thought Seanie carried strongly and led the team well, while Luke looked dangerous.
“With the World Cup coming up we know that we’ve got to rotate the squad. He (Luke) is pretty happy playing full-back and I’m sure there will be times when he will feature there for us. We have a few injuries which are causing a bit of concern for us. We will get Stan (Wright) checked out, while Mike Ross limped off.
“Even though there were a few errors for their tries, the good thing is that we can go through the analysis and look at the areas that need to be tightened up ahead of the Leicester game next week. This year will be difficult, but that’s not an excuse. We’re Leinster and we know that we have to deliver,” he added
