Wasps coach Dai Young refused to blame Willie Le Roux for this Champions Cup quarter-final exit despite the South African fullback losing possession in the process of scoring what seemed a certain try.
“I don’t think any coach is going to sit here and crucify his own players,” said Young. “He apologised to the coaches and the players at half-time. What more is there to say?
“I’m not saying it was a turning factor; we had 55 minutes to turn it around.”
On 23 minutes Le Roux latched onto a thrilling break by Wallaby fullback Kurtley Beale, created by former Leinster outhalf Jimmy Gopperth, to sprint clear.
However, none of the experience Le Roux has gained in 41 Springbok appearances could help the 27-year-old maintain control of the ball as he swan-dived over the Leinster line.
“It would be given in other games,” Young continued, “but we shouldn’t even be talking about it, should we? Should have just been put down and jog back and we kick the conversion.”
The conversion would have closed the gap to a single point – 8-7 – but instead tries from Jack Conan and Robbie Henshaw left Wasps trailing 22-3 at half-time.
“We made a lot of mistakes,” Young added. “That’s on us. If you look at the first 20 minutes, we couldn’t get to three phases. We looked like rabbits in the headlights.
“Letting Leinster score straight from a kick, we’ll have to look at that. We handed them 14 points. That gave us a massive mountain to climb.
“We looked like the occasion get to us. We looked like we were panicking. I don’t think it was any lack of effort. At all. More lack of accuracy and forcing thing when we didn’t need to.”
