REES WARY OF EDINBURGH RAINING ON WASPS’ PARADE
Tom Rees scored a try with three minutes remaining at Murrayfield last Friday to seal London Wasps’ second win in the Heineken Cup this campaign, but the England flank forward knows that his team will have to improve their performance in the return fixture at Adams’s Park this Sunday if they stand any chance of progressing to the last eight of the competition – with three Pool 2 games to play they are six points behind leaders Leinster, who have 14.
The 24-year-old’s late score, which ensured a scrappy 25-16 win, vanquished the horror of three years ago when Simon Webster’s injury-time try helped Edinburgh to win 32-31 – but Rees knows Andy Robinson’s team will be gunning for revenge in England against the Guinness Premiership champions.
“It was important to get the result up in Edinburgh,” said Rees, whose team are yet to win three games in a row this term. “We have not had many happy memories going up there in the past. It was good to pick up the result and keep our Heineken Cup hopes alive and we will be looking to do the same this week. It is still a case of knowing that if we lose then we are out of the Heineken Cup.
“Hopefully it will be a bit more comfortable this week with it being at home. We also have slightly longer to prepare this week so we should be sharper and better prepared. Also I hope the rugby is a little bit better, because while it was a great result last Friday it was not a great game for us. Hopefully that win will help our confidence build and we will start to play some better rugby as well as winning.
“There is a hell of a lot of pressure on us at the moment, and we have put some of that on ourselves through not performing and not winning. But the more wins we get, the more pressure we take off ourselves. The tendency is to try and be more conservative and grind results out. When you are winning and flying high things seem to come more easily. In our current state of mind we are perhaps more wary of trying things.
“One of the problems that we got ourselves in to at the beginning of the season was that when things did start to go wrong everyone was constantly looking for ways out of it. We were effectively trying too hard; the more important thing would have been to relax. But that is counter intuitive when things are going badly. It is important for us to stay relaxed and confident but at the same time our focus has got to be sky high. When these wins do hopefully start to mount up – at the moment we are still only talking about two – we can play with a bit more confidence.”
On Sunday’s opponents Rees added: “Edinburgh will not be too happy about losing at Murrayfield. They are a very well drilled side, as you would expect from a team who are managed by Andy Robinson. He selected me for my first game for England, so I have a lot of respect for him.
“They have got a very good back row, and it was a very interesting one to go up against last week. They have got a few young players, too, so these are exiting times for them if they can grow in confidence themselves and move forward. My concern is this week they are going to come down smarting for having lost at home.
“I’d imagine they would be quite happy to rain on our parade in terms of making sure we don’t progress in the Heineken Cup. So we’ll have to be pretty sharp to win. They game went right to the death up in Scotland and we will have to work very hard to make sure that is not the case on Sunday.”
Tom Rees scored a try with three minutes remaining at Murrayfield last Friday to seal London Wasps’ second win in the Heineken Cup this campaign, but the England flank forward knows that his team will have to improve their performance in the return fixture at Adams’s Park this Sunday if they stand any chance of progressing to the last eight of the competition – with three Pool 2 games to play they are six points behind leaders Leinster, who have 14.
The 24-year-old’s late score, which ensured a scrappy 25-16 win, vanquished the horror of three years ago when Simon Webster’s injury-time try helped Edinburgh to win 32-31 – but Rees knows Andy Robinson’s team will be gunning for revenge in England against the Guinness Premiership champions.
“It was important to get the result up in Edinburgh,” said Rees, whose team are yet to win three games in a row this term. “We have not had many happy memories going up there in the past. It was good to pick up the result and keep our Heineken Cup hopes alive and we will be looking to do the same this week. It is still a case of knowing that if we lose then we are out of the Heineken Cup.
“Hopefully it will be a bit more comfortable this week with it being at home. We also have slightly longer to prepare this week so we should be sharper and better prepared. Also I hope the rugby is a little bit better, because while it was a great result last Friday it was not a great game for us. Hopefully that win will help our confidence build and we will start to play some better rugby as well as winning.
“There is a hell of a lot of pressure on us at the moment, and we have put some of that on ourselves through not performing and not winning. But the more wins we get, the more pressure we take off ourselves. The tendency is to try and be more conservative and grind results out. When you are winning and flying high things seem to come more easily. In our current state of mind we are perhaps more wary of trying things.
“One of the problems that we got ourselves in to at the beginning of the season was that when things did start to go wrong everyone was constantly looking for ways out of it. We were effectively trying too hard; the more important thing would have been to relax. But that is counter intuitive when things are going badly. It is important for us to stay relaxed and confident but at the same time our focus has got to be sky high. When these wins do hopefully start to mount up – at the moment we are still only talking about two – we can play with a bit more confidence.”
On Sunday’s opponents Rees added: “Edinburgh will not be too happy about losing at Murrayfield. They are a very well drilled side, as you would expect from a team who are managed by Andy Robinson. He selected me for my first game for England, so I have a lot of respect for him.
“They have got a very good back row, and it was a very interesting one to go up against last week. They have got a few young players, too, so these are exiting times for them if they can grow in confidence themselves and move forward. My concern is this week they are going to come down smarting for having lost at home.
“I’d imagine they would be quite happy to rain on our parade in terms of making sure we don’t progress in the Heineken Cup. So we’ll have to be pretty sharp to win. They game went right to the death up in Scotland and we will have to work very hard to make sure that is not the case on Sunday.”
Labels: Edinburgh, Heineken Cup, London Wasps, Tom Rees
