DAI Young believes his Wasps team have improved dramatically over the last 12 months following Saturday’s thrilling 36-24 victory over rivals Leicester Tigers in the Aviva Premiership.
Wasps moved back up to third in the league table after ending a run of four successive defeats against Leicester thanks to an emphatic bonus-point win at the Ricoh Arena.
Two tries from Charles Piutau as well as further scores from Christian Wade, Frank Halai and replacement Nathan Hughes helped Wasps pick up a tenth win of the season and Young feels his side were stronger than Leicester in all apartments.
He said: “If you turn the clock back almost 12 months, the Tigers were too physical for us and completely knocked us out of our stride, so we knew coming into the game today that first and foremost, you have to earn the right to play.
“I think everybody’s seen from us for most of the season that we want to play exciting, high-tempo rugby – ball-in-hand rugby, but you have to earn that right because obviously teams aren’t going to allow you to play that type of rugby.
“Defensively, I thought we did a good job of not allowing them to get on the front foot too much. Certainly for the first 50 minutes we were in control of those areas, which allowed us to play the kind of rugby that we want to play.
“I was still a little bit nervous with 25 minutes to go, if I’m honest, when they were only 12 points behind us because you know how strong characters the Tigers are and they were certainly looking to try to spoil the party, so I thought Nathan Hughes’ try was really important for us to put that bit of distance between us and to make us feel a little bit more comfortable.
“Overall it was a big squad effort. I said to the squad about eight or nine weeks ago, it’s not going to be 15 that’s going to get us to, hopefully, where we’d like to be – it’s the full squad.
“I’ve tried my best to utilise and rotate the squad, while still having some consistency in selection, but you need to be there pushing in the business end of the season and not dying away. Hopefully we’ll be there in the business end of the season, with everybody firing.”
