A well drilled Aylesbury pack looked to provide good opposition and posed early questions to a re-organised Wasps pack with Pierre Barel bravely stepping up to the front row to cover for injury. In the lineout both Alex Cailleteau and Saul Boyer dominated the match stealing countless opposition throws and providing quality ball from accurate consistent throwing from Lewis. In the early exchanges great positions were thwarted by the pack providing some poor ball for scrum half Phil Butler to deal with.

In the backs Alex Lozowski coolly controlled the game from the kick off, keeping the side’s disciple and pattern until gaps appeared and then ruthlessly exploiting them.

The first 2 tries came from this control leading to overlaps once with an exquisitely timed pass from Dylan Demange sending Alex Hodgkinson clear to pass to Jacques Whittle to trot in and second, with a little more work to do, Jacques in typical style giving 2 pile-driver hands-off to send the defence sprawling as he crossed the line for his second try.

Next up Oisin Patterson, who along with new back row combo of No8 Saul and No 7 Alex C were beginning to boss the contact area, broke free from a ruck down the blind side beating a wing and full back to sprint in for a marvellous individual effort. Alex H converted.

Having fed to his backs or forwards all morning suddenly Alex L, fed by debutant scrum half (and fellow Watford Grammar boy) George Brown, darted inside his unsuspecting opposite number accelerated past the cover defence to score a lovely try under the posts which was again converted by Alex H.

Score after 2x 20min sessions Aylesbury 0 Wasps 24

Into the last 20 min session Aylesbury began to tire and the scores became more of a procession although Wasps kept their discipline and structure, working as a team to get those overlaps which now started to appear all over the park. A lovely passage of play where the pack fed quick ball from 3 successive rucks gave the backs a clear overlap and Dylan scored a deserved try.

Alex L was again on the score sheet after the entire Aylesbury back division was swallowed up in successive rucks.

The ball once again was fed wide quickly to find Lewis loitering out on the wing to trundle in from 10 meters out, his dive making him look like someone from Swan Lake... one of the stage hands.

Pierre Barel was next on the score sheet. Having toiled all day in the nether regions of the scrum he found himself galloping towards the line, he then sold an outrageous (Hugo-like) dummy to a gobsmacked and entirely unmarked Rakim Mitchell and took two opponents with him as he crashed over the line.

Justice was served as, next up, Rakim rounded of an excellent individual display cruising in at the corner for an emphatic victory.

Final score Aylesbury 0 Wasps 51

The team continues to improve and mesh as a side. Early poor rucking was sorted out and this week, as the game broke up, we kept our discipline much better than we did against Saracens, and the whole team worked very hard in the contact ruck and maul areas to create the gaps out wide that created so many memorable tries.

Obviously our league competitors will give us a much sterner test in all departments but you can only play what is in front of you and what was most encouraging was to see that our early season ‘white line fever’ has given way to cool and precise finishing.

We need to work on our communication and awareness as there were times when the forwards took it on too often with the backs screaming for the ball, and times when we needed to tie it in but the ball went wide. However, this was an excellent display against opposition that could have caused problems especially up front if we had let them off the hook at any stage. We didn’t. Well done everyone and many thanks to all the supporters who travelled.

See you all on Sunday for training.

Gordon