Wasps lack strength to withstand Garvey phenomenon

Gloucester prodigy passes fitness test while Saracens captain aims to put injury problems behind him in World Cup build-up

The official announcement came through from Gloucester early yesterday afternoon: "Marcel Garvey's hamstring injury has been deemed fit to play." That's all right, then. Next week, when the Premiership leaders slip into Heineken Cup mode and entertain the hapless Italians of Viadana, we may see Garvey's hamstring injury on one wing and the rest of Garvey on the other. Buy your tickets now, before word gets round.

Quite seriously, Garvey's extreme pace is fast earning him some freak-show notoriety. People are beginning to expect fairly daft things of him, like turning and catching the super-quick All Black wing Bruce Reihana from behind in the space of 15 metres and dumping him on his superior posterior. And being a young lad with ambition, he likes to deliver. His tackle on Reihana during last week's marvellous match at Northampton was one of the big moments of the campaign to date.

Heaven knows what Wasps will make of the 19-year-old newcomer in front of a sell-out Kingsholm audience this afternoon, for they are not blessed with the quickest of wings. Kenny Logan, now on the wrong side of 30 and not getting any sharper, will go face to face with Garvey, assuming Gloucester start with him. The rest of the Londoners' back three, the full-back Jonny Hylton and the right wing John Rudd, are 21-year-olds with next to no experience at this level. As Warren Gatland, their coach, has rested both Rob Howley and Alex King and declined to rush Craig Dowd, Joe Worsley and Josh Lewsey back from injury, a comprehensive Gloucester victory is on the cards.

A five-point victory for the title favourites would leave them over the Cotswolds and far away as far as the Premiership is concerned.

Of their remaining fixtures, only the trips to Saracens next month and Sale in April are likely to keep them awake at night, and now they have mastered the basic requirements of winning on the road – big scrum, hot line-out, accurate goal-kicking and a thousand tackles – it is far from certain that they will come unstuck on either occasion.

Leicester, a miserable sixth in the table after three consecutive league defeats, have never let slip four on the bounce and have no intention of allowing Saracens to take them into this uncharted territory. The champions will be pretty taut in the nerve department, though. They have injuries, with Austin Healey and Graham Rowntree the latest internationals to hand in sick notes, and look more vulnerable than at any point since the spring of 1997, when they lost four and drew one of their last six championship matches. Saracens, by contrast, are in good shape, although Thomas Castaignède has failed a fitness test and misses the trip to Welford Road.

In Wales, Neath and Cardiff meet in a Celtic League semi-final that would, if God were a supporter of club rugby, persuade the politicians to abandon all thought of moving to a provincial system next season and throwing a couple of hundred players out of work. The interest is reasonably high, given the mood of doom and gloom; The Gnoll holds 7,300, and 4,500 tickets had been sold by yesterday lunchtime. But five years ago people would already have been killing for a place on the terraces.

Cardiff have picked Richard Smith at scrum-half ahead of the promising Ryan Powell, while Neath have fitness concerns over David Tiueti, James Storey, Lee Jarvis, Barry Williams, Gareth Llewellyn, Brett Sinkinson and Nathan Bonner-Evans – in other words, half their team. There again, they are at The Gnoll. A single score may settle it.