Dallaglio powers towards Johnson duel

Wasps 43 - Sale

Sébastien Chabal one week, Martin Johnson the next. Lawrence Dallaglio's late-season tour of the rogues' gallery of Premiership rugby - its chamber of horrors, some would say - continues apace, and it will not surprise the Wasps captain greatly if Leicester field Jack the Ripper and the Acid Bath Murderer in their pack at Twickenham this Saturday, just to make life really interesting. Not that Dallaglio is one to blanch at the prospect of some old-fashioned humpty. At this particular moment in time, he is as confrontational as any forward in the British Isles.

Sébastien Chabal one week, Martin Johnson the next. Lawrence Dallaglio's late-season tour of the rogues' gallery of Premiership rugby - its chamber of horrors, some would say - continues apace, and it will not surprise the Wasps captain greatly if Leicester field Jack the Ripper and the Acid Bath Murderer in their pack at Twickenham this Saturday, just to make life really interesting. Not that Dallaglio is one to blanch at the prospect of some old-fashioned humpty. At this particular moment in time, he is as confrontational as any forward in the British Isles.

An irresistible combination of orthopedic necessity and anno domini has forced the former national captain to rethink his modus operandi along more conservative lines. The wide-roaming, elephant-lunged athlete of yore has turned into a heavily-muscled, big-hitting exponent of the tight game, wholly comfortable with life in the darkened recesses.

When the Lions pitch up in Rotorua next month for the first game of their New Zealand tour and breathe in the sulphur - some of it emanating from the hot springs, the rest generated by the rank hostility of the local populace - they will be glad to have him among their number.

Not that Dallaglio has completely abandoned the rugby of the gods in favour of the rugby of the devil; in this unusually physical Premiership semi-final with Sale - unusual because previous games of this nature have been noticeably devoid of the meat-and-two-veg element - he frequently materialised in the wide open prairies with the ball in his hands and a hint of the free spirit of old in his eyes. But more often than not, he was to be found scrapping away with the big boys, of whom the ogreish Chabal was the by far the biggest.

"He's a character, that Chabal," said Dallaglio afterwards, recalling some hugely entertaining shenanigans at a line-out that ended with the dark-eyed Frenchman shoving the square-jawed Englishman with such force that the latter was propelled in the general direction of Hertfordshire.

"You have to admire the bloke, don't you? There's a touch of the old Gallic temper there, that's for sure, but I don't see why anyone should have a problem with what he does. I like playing against him."

And Johnson, who will lead Leicester against Wasps in the final this weekend? Does he have a problem with Johnson, the one man capable of making Chabal look like Gandhi?

"I shared a room with Martin on that lovely England tour of South Africa in 1994," Dallaglio replied, referring to one of the more nakedly violent rugby adventures in recent memory.

"He'd been knocked out by a punch during the game against Transvaal, which might explain why he didn't speak to me.

"In all seriousness, he's always been a magnificent competitor and I'm looking forward to the match. Leicester have players we respect enormously. In fact, we respect them enormously as a club."

In more ways than it is possible to identify short of writing an entire thesis on the subject, Dallaglio was magnificent on Saturday. His performance was matched only by that of Josh Lewsey, whose stunning try at the start of the second quarter was as hot as anything witnessed all season, and of young Tom Rees, an open-side flanker of the young buck variety who, if he continues to progress at this rate, will challenge for a place in the England squad come the next World Cup in 2007.

Mind you, Rees left the field on a stretcher, having mashed and mangled his knee ligaments. He is unlikely to feature this weekend, and with Jonny O'Connor already nursing a busted hand, Wasps are up a gum tree in the breakaway position.

Rees scored the first Wasps try on 21 minutes, starting the move a few metres from his own line by slipping down the blind side of a ferocious ruck, and finishing it after supporting some vigorous running from Joe Worsley and Paul Sackey.

That score drew the champions level at 10-10 - Sale had announced their full participation in proceedings by working Chabal over to the left of the posts in the opening exchanges - and when Lewsey cut inside Mark Cueto and burned off Jason Robinson to motor in from 80 metres, the most likely outcome was a decisive victory for the Londoners.

This they duly achieved, but not quite in the way they imagined. Dominant at the scrum despite some scandalous decision-making from the Northumberland referee Dave Pearson - the same official who had made their lives so complicated at Harlequins seven days previously - Sale responded with tries from two men who would, if there were any justice in the world, be joining Dallaglio in New Zealand. Jason White, the Scottish forward, claimed the first; Mark Cueto, the England wing, registered the second, thereby completing his usual ascent to the summit of the Premiership scoring chart.

They would have had another, courtesy of Robinson, had Pearson penalised Matthew Dawson for a nasty assault on Chabal. In keeping with his overall approach, he picked on the Frenchman instead and erased the five points from the ledger.

Sale still managed to turn round 22-17 to the good, but they had already lost Charlie Hodgson to a smack on the head and Magnus Lund to a dead leg, and they saw another international, Andy Titterrell, depart three minutes after the restart. By the end, they had also forfeited the services of Steve Hanley, who broke his leg, and John Carter, who dislocated a shoulder. Even worse, they leaked points by the bucketful, allowing Wasps to win the second half 26-0.

Philippe Saint-André and Kingsley Jones, the Sale coaches, were not best pleased with Pearson's contribution, but at the end of a long season they were in no mood to go to the House of Lords about it.

Dallaglio, on the other hand, was still full of energy. "This game is all about momentum, and the best way to approach a Lions tour is to keep playing until you get on the plane," he said. The man is one of the miracles of the age.

Wasps: Tries Rees, Lewsey, Erinle, Shaw; Conversions Van Gisbergen 4; Penalties Van Gisbergen 4; Drop goal King. Sale : Tries Chabal, White, Cueto; Conversions Hodgson, Wrigglesworth; Penalty Hodgson.

Wasps: M Van Gisbergen; P Sackey, A Erinle, J Lewsey (J Mbu, 81), T Voyce; A King, M Dawson (W Fury, 81); T Payne (C Dowd, 68), P Greening (T Leota, 68), W Green, S Shaw, R Birkett (M Purdy, 76), J Worsley, T Rees (J Hart, 70), L Dallaglio (capt).

Sale: J Robinson (capt); M Cueto, J Baxendell (O Ripol, 65), R Todd, S Hanley; C Hodgson (R Wrigglesworth, 29), B Redpath (S Martens, 72); B Coutts (S Turner, 49), A Titterrell (S Bruno, 43), B Stewart, J White (I Fernandez Lobbe, 52), D Schofield, C Jones, M Lund (J Carter, 32), S Chabal.

Referee: D Pearson (Northumberland).