On the move

But by Christmas time, incredibly, Dawson’s understudy had become his overstudy. Reddan kept his place too. But it was not just about holding his place. One evening last May, at the Wasps’ annual awards ceremony at the Hilton on Park Lane, he received the Players’ Player award, based on the votes of a 45-man playing staff. Edwards liked Reddan’s zip, and also the fact that for the last three months of the season, he had been willing to play through pain. A groin injury which surfaced in February became progressively worse, so much so that Reddan had to withdraw from Ireland’s summer tour. Presenting the award, Edwards described the Irishman as “our little hero”.

“We were down to one scrum-half at the end of the season and that scrum-half was running on one leg,” he says. “Anybody prepared to play through pain like that gets my respect.” Now follow that, Eoin Reddan.

IT IS is Wednesday lunchtime in south-west London and our hero is showing signs of frustration. It is not so much that his groin is still not 100% , forcing him to start Wasps’ first two Premiership games on the bench. It is the snag list on the new apartment he has bought in Richmond with Aoife, his girlfriend. The door to the dishwasher will not shut properly and there is a crack on the wall.

“What’s that programme on TV? Rogue Trader, is it? I feel like I’m one of their victims,” he says. “They’re dragging their muddy boots across the brand new carpet to fix a tiny crack in the corner. It feels like more hassle than it’s worth.”

That morning, it was a pilates session for the groin in Chiswick. In the afternoon, a get-together at the Acton training ground. Little has changed from last season. The famously basic facilities have had a lick of paint but the dressing room politics are the same.

Having made his international debut in Paris last March, he is perfectly entitled to find a spot in the main dressing room with the World Cup-winning MBEs such as Josh Lewsey and Lawrence Dallaglio. But he would prefer to stay in Room E with Johnny O’Connor, James Brooks, Rob Hoadley, James Haskell and Joe Worsley.

“It was a breakaway group we started last year,” he explains. “It was mainly Johnny trying to make me feel at home but a few others joined and now no one else is allowed in. We try to keep guys in different positions so we can bitch without worrying who’s listening. It’s a bit of a down-to-earth dressing room, because me and Johnny both come from places where you keep your feet on the ground. Not than anybody at the club doesn’t. Like, Dallaglio has recently been playing second-team games to get fit and it’s a long time since he’s played Monday night rugby. You can have your (superstars’) dressing room but we’ll stick to what we know.”

The main difference this September is that for the first time in three years, Wasps have not started the season as English champions. During that period, they set new standards for bloody-mindedness, power and endurance. Wasps players may not have been the biggest but they seemed to fill their jerseys more convincingly. They would still be going at the end of games and at the end of the season. But teams copied, caught up and passed them by. Last year, Wasps won the Powergen Cup but nothing else. They did not even qualify from their pool in the Heineken Cup.

Reddan says the same work ethic is still there. The difference is it is also to be found elsewhere — in Munster, for example. “People talk about the gym culture at Wasps and they’re right. You notice as soon as you walk in,” says Reddan. “We mightn’t have cushions in the dressing room but I didn’t do one weights session last year without an individual trainer. You wouldn’t do a rep without a guy watching on. But other teams have caught up so we’re looking for other ways to improve, to push the boundaries, never staying stationary — a bit like Munster are at the moment. Only the other day, Shaun was using them as an example. Wasps would now almost try to identify with what Munster do.”

It took two years and three invitations before he finally made the leap. When Gatland first got in touch, he was at Connacht, following the trail of his brothers Alan and Diarmuid, and his father Don. He was flattered by the attention but there was also an offer on the table from Munster. He had grown up in Limerick, played for the province at schools and under-20s. No contest.

It went well at first. Ireland and Peter Stringer were off at the World Cup and Reddan started eight or nine games on the trot. The Munster supporters voted him their player of the quarter. Then Stringer came back and the only rugby he got was in AIL Division Two with Old Crescent. “He (Alan Gaffney) would switch Mike Prendergast and myself around on the bench without ever using either of us and it would drive us both mental,” he says.

Gatland was soon in touch to say the offer was still open, then again shortly afterwards to say that Dawson was on his way from Northampton.

Reddan took another year in Munster before taking the plunge. The timing looked iffy, with Gatland going and Ian McGeechan, a very old pal of Dawson, was arriving as director of rugby. But Edwards assured him he would be given every opportunity.

“People might have thought I was mad but when someone like Shaun says something, you tend to go with it,” he says. “I spoke to a few senior players in Munster and they agreed I’d given every thing I could. I’m glad I went to Munster. I learnt a lot. I probably wasn’t ready to come to Wasps at that stage and it was the best possible preparation. I knew what would be expected of me, day in, day out.”

If he was surprised by anything or anybody, it was Dawson. The changing of the guard came after a disastrous start to the Heineken Cup, when the former winners lost two of their first three games and drew the other. Was there an outburst of petulance from the TV star? Not a bit of it, says Reddan.

“I knew how he’d been portrayed in the media but he was all help, right from the start,” says Reddan. “He never hid anything from me and everything he knows is so relevant to the game as it’s played now. It’s not like he’s 20 years on, talking to some scrum-half who is coming through. He has a mine of information. Like, at half-time, he’d have something for me and often it would come through. He’d say the second defender off the ruck is pushing up hard and leaving a hole. And I went through the hole once or twice. I hadn’t seen that. He has retired now but I speak to him regularly still and hope to use him in the future.”

The only problem with displacing Dawson was that Reddan was playing so much more rugby than he had been used to — over 30 games including pre-season fixtures. It eventually told and the price he paid was his summer tour. “I knew I had problems with my groin during the Six Nations and two Wasps games later, I was crocked,” he says. “I was on pain killers. I wasn’t training, just warming up Saturday, playing the match, getting into the ice bath, then staying off my feet until the following Saturday and doing it all over again. I did that for four or five weeks.

“I ended up missing the tour but as it happened, I couldn’t have gone anyway. My rehab was always going to take 12 weeks. I was gutted. I hadn’t been involved for very long so I wanted to keep in there.”

All of which brings a certain urgency to the coming weeks. Eddie O’Sullivan has already said that the November Tests against South Africa, Australia and the Pacific Islanders are his only real opportunity before the World Cup to test his strength in depth in positions such as scrum-half — indeed, it would be irresponsible for him not to do so. It remains to be seen whether Isaac Boss, who took Reddan’s place in June, has genuinely jumped the queue.

Reddan should begin to restate his case against Harlequins at High Wycombe next Sunday — he looked sharp off the bench in the 23-17 win over London Irish last Friday night. Edwards, for one, reckons he would be perfect for France in 12 months’ time.

“I particularly remember the semi- of the Powergen against Leicester,” says Edwards. “The roof was closed on the Millennium and it was a really fast track. He was absolutely outstanding, just lightning between breakdowns. He’d remind you a bit of Rob Howley in that way, though obviously he has a bit to go yet. But we’re trying to prepare him so he can be a future No 1 for Ireland.”

Just so long as people remember Edwards spotted him first.