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| Phil Vickery - back in Wasps front row |
| Vickery returns for first game since RWC final |
| 30 November 2007, 11:42 am |
| By Jonathan McConnell |
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| London Wasps welcome England World Cup captain Phil Vickery back to the fray for his first game of club rugby this season in Saturday’s EDF Energy Cup game against Newcastle Falcons. |
Vickery, who on Saturday will play his first game of rugby since the World Cup Final, has been undergoing a period of rehab on a neck injury he suffered during the World Cup tournament, and Saturday will see him re-united with fellow international front rowers Tom Payne and Raphael Ibanez for the first time in 8 months.
The last time this front row combination were together, Wasps were playing Leinster in the Heineken Cup quarter final last March. During that game a knee injury put and end to Tim Payne’s season, and by the time the England loose head had fully recovered, Vickery and Ibanez had departed for France and the Rugby World Cup.
The powerful front row form part of a formidable Wasps pack, where two more changes from last week see Simon Shaw and Lawrence Dallaglio back in the starting fifteen after appearing from the bench last Sunday, whilst Tom Rees is left out after failing to recover sufficiently from a hand injury which forced him from the pitch during last weekend’s game.
Behind the scrum the line up remains unchanged for the fourth week in succession, and the clash between Wasps’ and Newcastle’s respective back lines promises to produce some exciting attacking rugby and intriguing head to heads, as Wasps’ Director of Rugby Ian McGeechan acknowledges:
“Saturday’s game will be a big challenge for our back line again, as we will be up against one of the most positive sides in English rugby for the second time within a week.
“I thought one of the memorable aspects of last week’s game between our two sides was the ability and willingness of both teams to play some rugby.
“We know this is going to be a very difficult game to win. Last week Newcastle proved what a positive force they are, so we are expecting a very competitive eighty minutes against them.
“It is good to see Phil Vickery back in the side this weekend. We have been very careful with his rehab and recovery since he returned from the World Cup, but we are happy that he is now fully fit a ready to go.
“Unfortunately Tom Rees has not fully recovered from the hand injury he picked up last weekend, and so we didn’t want to risk playing him tomorrow.”
London Wasps team to face Newcastle Falcons is:
15 Mark Van Gisbergen
14 Paul Sackey
13 Fraser Waters
12 Riki Flutey
11 Tom Voyce
10 Danny Cipriani
9 Eoin Reddan
1 Tim Payne
2 Raphael Ibanez
3 Phil Vickery
4 Simon Shaw
5 George Skivington
6 John Hart
7 James Haskell
8 Lawrence Dallaglio (c)
16 Joe Ward
17 Nick Adams
18 Richard Birkett
19 Dan Leo
20 Simon Amor
21 Josh Lewsey
22 Rob Webber |
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