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'I'm grieving': Lawrence Dallaglio breaks silence on Wasps' demise
By
Liam Heagney
Wasps legend Lawrence Dallaglio has broken his silence on the RFU suspension of the club from the Gallagher Premiership after they admitted on Wednesday they would be entering administration and were unable to fulfil their fixture on Saturday at Exeter. The former trophy-winning skipper had kept his counsel since the midweek lunchtime statement from the Coventry-based club laid bare their cash-flow problems.
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Dallaglio had gotten himself into controversy last weekend when rugby fans claimed he had insinuated that Wasps should be treated differently from Worcester, the other club suspended by the RFU from this season’s Premiership.
He tried to explain himself since that criticism by addressing the issue on BT Sport and again during his top-of-the-week Evening Standard Rugby Podcast. However, he hadn’t publicly reacted to the news that Wasps had been suspended from the Premiership until Saturday’s live broadcast of the game between Gloucester and Bristol.
Working as a pundit alongside Brian O’Driscoll at Kingsholm, Dallaglio was asked by BT Sport presenter Martin Bayfield for his thoughts on the situation at Wasps which should have a sequel on Monday when their official fall into administration is expected to be followed by the RFU confirming their automatic relegation to the Championship for 2023/24.
“You would have noticed I am not great company to be around at the minute,” said Dallaglio, who is on the Wasps board of directors. “There is a lot of pain inside my heart. Putting the blame game to one side, why Wasps are here and who is responsible for that, from an emotional level it is painful. It’s heartbreaking really.
“I was at the club for 18 years and it’s more than a rugby club for me. It arrived in my life and it completely transformed my life. I think I speak on behalf of all Wasps fans, it’s a dark few weeks and there is a lot of pain and sorrow and emotion and I’m grieving right now. I don’t think it reflects well on anyone, on Wasps, on rugby in general, the state of English rugby at the minute.
“There are fans out there, Worcester and Wasps, who have lost part of their family and that is what it feels like to me. It feels like you have lost part of your family because Wasps really are my family. It is a strange place because Wasps is not a place, it’s not Northampton or Gloucester or Bath or Newcastle. You can’t walk around there.
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“It’s about the people and there are some very special people at that club and my heart at the moment goes out to all of those players and staff at Wasps and Worcester who really go through it and don’t quite know what is happening in the uncertainty around it. Listen, what will happen tomorrow is another day but right now there is a lot of pain and a lot of emotion.”
O’Driscoll added that Premiership Rugby must quickly up its game, be more in charge and stop being reactive to a crisis that they shoddily didn’t see coming. “The professional game is over a quarter of a century old now and in some ways, it is a surprise that we have made it this far considering how many clubs have we lost, how there hasn’t been that financial transparency within the PRL.
“There is now a need for someone to oversee it, to be able to future-proof the game but also to identify issues when they are coming down the line rather than land on us and be reactive to it. Try to be proactive. The strategy is going to be all-important going forward and that is why the guys at PRL are paid the big dough, right?”
