RIDDLE me this . . . if Stanley Wright of the Cook Islands and Northland was arguably Leinster's best player last weekend, how rotten are things in the state of Denmark?

One of the more encouraging things about last weekend was that I realised that I still had pace and was quite capable of stepping off either foot. It was essential at both airports, the hordes of disillusioned were looking for answers. I didn't even know the questions.

I always find that expectation dulls reason and a lot of the blue clad were certain of victory. Sometimes it is not a bad thing to be confident. Every year in the Champions League, millions are pumped towards achieving an end, when the means might not necessarily be there. In England, Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool all think they will or should win the whole shebang; Real, Barcelona or Valencia in Spain do too, and so on for all the major soccer nations. So as many as 20 teams reckon they are going to be the ones to do it and 19 of them are going to be pissed off with the way the season went.

Leinster were in the last eight out of 24, the business end, hence, the giddy anticipation.

The verdict . . . lucky to get out of the group. Why do we always expect to win. From the Wasps game going forward something has become patently obvious. In fact, notionally it's written in stone. Leinster's credibility is shot. Nobody can take them seriously again.

Before the quarter-finals were played, who were the worst team left in the competition?

I'll give you a clue they beat Munster in the 2000 final. Northampton, the Leinster of England had to beat the Parma Hamsters and the Border Receivers to get to the last eight.

The bookies had Biarritz to win by 20 in San Sebastian. As I left High Wycombe I said to a few colleagues "ya know what . . . betcha the Saints turn Biarritz over tomorrow" and just to throw a few more gallons of gasoline onto Leinster's funeral pyre they did. They murdered them 7-6.

Two things came into my head when I saw the match. When Northampton won the Cup in 2000 they had serious quality in that side, including Pat Lam, Tim Rodber, Budge Pountney, Allan Bateman, a fit and enthusiastic Ben Cohen. They also had Paul Grayson at full back . . . more of a goalie than a generalissimo but he nailed all his kicks when Ronan O'Gara didn't. The guy had nerve.

Northampton's achievement in San Sebastian was done with a group of players of whom none would have made it into the 2000 side with the possible exception of the Clown Prince Carlos Spencer. Incidentally Northampton have done nothing since they won the Heino in 2000. This Northampton side of bottom dwellers is coached by Grayson who, in his post-match interview, said something which was so obvious that it startled me. Grayson said, "We came here with a plan . . .

to tackle . . . and if we were still in the game with 20 to go we knew we had a chance." Well, bugger me, the cute silver-haired cunning old fox.

Grayson knew his team were there by accident, but that should not have been an impediment to progress. His team were hopelessly outclassed and there was only one course of action . . . come out fighting, do it in a controlled fashion and only check and see if your body is in one piece after 90 minutes is over. Northampton played with the conviction of desperate men and they also played outside the law. But the fundamental point of Grayson's strategy worked . . . if you stop your opponents from scoring you have a chance.

The difference between Leinster and Northampton is that Leinster don't do death or glory. For Leinster to be in with a chance of the game in the last 10 all they had to do was make their tackles, push forward, close down space and knock the Wasps players back over the gain line with malice. To my mind there are three defensive machinations . . . fringe, first up and scramble. Leinster are normally pretty good in all departments, somewhere around the B+ mark, but this season there was a marked diminution in the standard. They leaked 10 tries in the pool stages. But you would still expect them to tighten up when the knock-outs came around.

We knew why Wasps had progressed out of a tough group . . . they only let five people over their line in the pool stages. Shaun Edwards had his line humming and physically they bossed Leinster at the tackle scene. The only surprise was that at half-time with the score at 13-10 they still hadn't realised that the game was theirs. At half time as Wasps trudged into their dressing room they were met by Lawrence Dallaglio, a cup of tea in one hand and a large packet of Paxo stuffing in the other: "These turkeys are there for the taking, let's give it to them." It took Wasps, who were living on their wits for 40 minutes, until then to realise that Leinster hadn't shown up physically. They fully pushed home their advantage.

If I was the Leinster coach and I took all the possible permutations into account when assessing the match, my sole focus would be on savage aggression in the tackle. This would let the opposition know from the off that Leinster were there to do business and the real Leinster team had showed up. Once Wasps saw what wasn't happening the game was up.

I think this was the major coaching failure of the weekend. Leinster were out-coached and out-thought. Even when the game was in the melting pot there was no faculty shown to think on the hoof.

Shaun Edwards and Ian McGeechan had correctly identified Gordon D'Arcy as their prime target . . . neutralise him at all costs, even if it meant 15 players tackling him at once, so be it. Wasps had looked at Kieran Lewis and decided . . . correctly . . . that he wasn't going to bother them. He is a good Magners League player when he is surrounded by good players.

He was dropped for Friday's league game against Glasgow.

The question has to be asked . . . how do you beat a rush defence without kicking the ball away? Leinster didn't have any answers. But as the opposition outside centre rushes up before his inside partner, there is opportunity and space if the back line lies a shade deeper. It was obvious that D'Arcy had no time or space nor would he get any. Wasps were confident that they could block the 12 channel all day. The obvious thing to do was make a change. Horgan looked keen and dangerous but in this match he didn't see much of the ball. I would have put him in at 12, move D'Arcy to 13 and put Rob Kearney on the right. D'Arcy would have been able to get outside or inside Fraser Waters, Horgan would have caused problems inside. This you wouldn't class as hindsight, it was screaming out to be effected from 30 minutes out.

If you want to win away from home in a competitive match sometimes you have to be patient. Leinster tried to keep ball in hand, when field position was the way forward. If you ever had doubts about your pack then always make sure you play the game in the opposition half. It's only when you are stuck in your own half that the opposition pack begin to crank it up as they realise that they can dominate and control.

Apparently Wasps made 135 tackles in the game and most of these were made in Leinster's half as they ran up their bum. It was never a statistic which would qualify that Leinster knew what they were doing. Sure enough it was easy for Leinster to ship some silly scores as they played unstructured rugby.

Wasps have a great facility to keep their concentration without the ball.

Leinster must now look from afar at events in Franklins Gardens in two weeks time. Larry Grayson's charges have every chance of turning Wasps over and if they do lose it will be a far shorter margin than 35-13. It's galling to watch on our Sky Sports satellite TV's in Dublin and see a team who merely just made their tackles and got stuck in be one step away from Twickenham.

The conversations on the first tee boxes will be "we really missed O'Driscoll". Nuh-huh, we really missed our tackles.