'It was proper animalistic behaviour, the English were in town'

Tom Voyce has recalled the intimidating cauldron Wasps found themselves in when playing Munster in the famed 2004 Heineken Cup semi-final. The English club won a high-scoring epic 37-32 en route to winning the European trophy for the first time, but the semi-final try-scorer has explained how daunting a build-up it was, alleging that the sight of the then London club’s team bus had fans of the Irish club smashing and spitting.

Wasps are the club that feature in the final episode of Rugby Stories, the BT Sport podcast series reflecting on milestone achievements by clubs in England, with the 2003/04 season in Europe chosen for review. Voyce, one of the show’s contributors, painted a graphic picture of the build-up to their Dublin assignment.

“The (Warren) Gatland factor going into this was huge. It’s probably the game out of all the games – including the final – which I remember the most and it’s still vivid, still sticks in my mind,” he said.

“Going into that game, I had never seen or experienced it before, we got on the bus and that short bus journey down to Lansdowne Road, there was smashing the bus from the Irish fans, spitting, whatever.

“It was proper animalistic behaviour. The English were in town, you know, get out of our city. And it was true to his word, it was unbelievable scenes to see walking into that old Lansdowne stadium and see that kind of mongrelness coming through and thinking, ‘Right, we are up against it massively’. Then when you walk out and see that stadium and it is just a sea of red with 3,000 black-spotted fans in the corner – you knew this was going to be a gladiatorial fight.”

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The backdrop to the semi-final was Gatland returning to Ireland with the English club two and a half years after he had been sacked as the Irish national team coach. Skipper Lawrence Dallaglio ensured that history was used as fuel to get Wasps buzzing. “Warren was very quiet about it. He never mentioned it at all but I knew deep down personally that there was an itch he was scratching there,” he said.

“He felt the circumstances around his exit from the Irish national team were not for the right reasons and it left a bad taste in his mouth, so I used it internally to motivate.

“Even though I wouldn’t necessarily have said that to Warren directly, I made sure in training throughout the week the players very much knew that if you ever needed any added motivation for a semi-final, Warren had given us all the opportunities to do some pretty special things on the rugby field and this was one that we needed to give back to him.”

• For the full Wasps episode, check out BT Sport’s podcast series, Rugby Stories, part of the BT Sport Pods lineup of podcasts. Rugby Stories, presented by Craig Doyle, spotlights and celebrates English club rugby history. Btsport.com/pods