Cipriani unable to make impression

Wasps 21 London Irish 16

(DAVID DAVIES/PA)

The unusually late kick-off ensured it could not be a High Noon affair, still less pistols at dawn, but it was billed as a shoot-out all the same. Danny Cipriani versus Shane Geraghty, brat-packer against brat-packer. Some thought there might be an England starting place against France resting on the outcome of this little tête-à-tête, although Martin Johnson, the national manager, had not given so much as a hint of an indication that he was thinking of doing away with Toby Flood or Andy Goode any time soon.

In the event, there was no beginning to the long-awaited duel of the new-generation No 10s, let alone a denouement. Geraghty found himself operating at full-back rather than outside-half, thanks to Topsy Ojo's late withdrawal through injury and the resulting positional rejig, while Cipriani was so quiet for so much of the match, even the paparazzi went home early. Precious few meaningful shots were fired by either man. If Cipriani and his rival squared the kicking contest, it was Geraghty who looked the more threatening with ball in hand. Just about.

Not that there was much of a threat from anyone, anywhere, apart from the London Irish wing Sailosi Tagicakibau, who repeatedly hurt Wasps in those defensive areas most sides fail to reach. The proceedings ended with uncontested scrums, that great blight on the modern game, but just for once, the abandonment of the set-piece did not ruin the spectacle. To be perfectly frank, the spectacle got precisely what it deserved.

There was even something profoundly unsatisfactory about Pat Barnard's decisive try, late in the third quarter. Josh Lewsey and Dominic Waldouck, the two Wasps centres, were heavily involved in a prolonged assault on the visitors' line, and when the ball finally went left, Barnard made his tight-head prop's frame as aerodynamic as possible and aimed himself horizontally at the left flag. Romain Poite, the French referee, could not make a decision, and neither could the television match official for the best part of four minutes. When the score was finally confirmed, London Irish were less than overjoyed.

"They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I don't suppose I'm a picture of happiness," said Toby Booth, their head coach. "Rugby is a simple game – you set up a platform, you get yourselves some quick ball and you create chances – so I'm disappointed that we made it far more difficult than it needed to be. But I'll also be looking very closely at that try, because in an attritional competition like this, a Premiership that is probably more closely fought than ever before, these key decisions make a hell of a difference. If a call takes that long to make, there has to be something questionable about it."

Booth had every right to be dissatisfied with his team's lack of control, and may well be proved correct in his suspicions on the Barnard front – assuming, of course, there is a camera angle in existence that tells the true story.

But Wasps, who came up short in the first half while playing with a strong wind at their backs, were decent value for a victory that gives them a puncher's chance of making it into the Heineken Cup qualifying places. The game's most influential players – Waldouck, Barnard, Tom Rees and the outstanding No 8 John Hart – were all wearing black. None of them tripped the light fantastic, but all worked their fingers to the bone.

Irish, so capable for so long this season, are in danger of slip-sliding away. Booth does not have legions of front-line operators at his disposal – the Exiles, determined not to throw good money after bad, have one of the smaller squads in the Premiership – and in the absence of important players, many of them tight forwards, they have hit a lean patch. Six league games without a win? For all their brilliance at chiselling out losing bonus points, this is not the form of a side destined for the play-offs.

Wasps started well. Rather, they started less badly than Irish. Barnard, renowned as much for his technical prowess at the set-piece as for his inability to go three games without breaking down with some orthopaedic problem or other, piled on the heat at a close-range scrum to earn his side a penalty try, and when Cipriani notched a couple of penalties to go with the straightforward conversion, the ailing champions had a lead on which victory could be constructed.

But Geraghty, now playing with the windy conditions rather than against them, brought Irish back to within four points early in the second half, and there seemed every possibility of something better until Barnard broke the game with his disputed score.

Cipriani's third penalty on 69 minutes, presented to him by the errant Exiles flanker Declan Danaher, gave Wasps a buffer, and even though Adam Thompstone skinned Tom Voyce down the right following some resourceful work from Tagicakibau on the other side of the field, the hard-hitting tacklers in the home back row ensured there would be no late calamity.

None of the senior England coaches made the trip to Adams Park, which showed a certain prescience, but Johnson, presumably watching on the small screen, will at least have noted the contribution of Rees, back in the thick of it after weeks of injury hassle.

The open-side flanker and possible future captain is not up to international duty quite yet, but it will be very interesting to see who gets the nod when both he and Joe Worsley, the current red-rose No 7, start contesting the breakaway role at club level.

Wasps: Tries Penalty, Barnard. Conversion Cipriani. Penalties Cipriani 3. London Irish: Try Thompstone. Conversion Geraghty. Penalties Geraghty 3.

Wasps: M Van Gisbergen; L Mitchell, D Waldouck, J Lewsey, T Voyce; D Cipriani, M Robinson (E Reddan 43); T Payne, R Webber, P Barnard (R Birkett 71), S Shaw, G Skivington, S Betsen (capt), T Rees, J Hart.

London Irish: S Geraghty; A Thompstone, E Seveali'i, S Mapusua, S Tagicakibau; M Catt (capt), P Hodgson (P Richards 61); C Dermody, J Buckland (D Coetzee 54), T Lea'aetoa (R Skuse 48, J Fisher 70), J Hudson, G Johnson, D Danaher, S Arfmitage, C Hala'ufia (R Thope 61).

Referee: R Poite (France).