Kidney looks ahead to Wasps clash

Declan Kidney insists London Irish will continue to take it game by game, as the Exiles prepare for Sunday’s Boxing Day clash against Wasps.

Irish head into the Round 11 Gallagher Premiership tie on the back of a five-match winning run, whilst Wasps haven’t won a game in six matches in all competitions - but Kidney isn’t taking anything for granted ahead of the trip to the Coventry Building Society Arena.

“It’s going to be a massive test for us, make no mistake,” he said.

“Wasps have a lot of players coming back from injury.

“It’s always a tough game up there.”

Kidney is happy with the progress his side are making, but is well aware of the fine margins in professional rugby.

“We’re in a good point at present,” he admitted.

“I didn’t feel we were too far off it early in the season, despite us not winning too many games.

“I don’t think we’re too far ahead of it now either, so we’ll just continue to take each game as it comes.

“The more often these lads play together, the more they will get to know each others idiosyncrasies and we can play off one another a little bit better - the odd pass sticking, picking the right lines.

“We’re moving forward but there’s still a lot of hard work ahead of us.”

Despite last weekend’s European Challenge Cup postponement, the Exiles’ Director of Rugby confirmed preparations for this Sunday’s game haven’t been affected, adding: “We’ve kept the structure of our training this week, despite the postponement last weekend.

“We trained fully until the Friday before the Brive game, when we heard that a decision had been made.

“We trained on the Sunday, using up some of the energy we’d built up for the match, and then got going again on Tuesday as we countdown to Wasps.”