‘We need to adapt better than England in Dublin’

Wasps’ Elliot Daly tells he seeks redemption in their tie against Leinster today

Elliot Daly’s last trip to Dublin, two weekends ago, was, he admits, a “weird” experience. England’s bid for back-to-back Six Nations Grand Slams fell short as Eddie Jones’s men were outfought and outthought by Joe Schmidt’s Ireland, bringing their world record-equalling run of 18 consecutive victories juddering to a halt.

They then had to grit their teeth and smile their way through what was, in truth, the hollowest of trophy presentations as they collected their Six Nations winners’ gongs on the Aviva Stadium turf before going out to ‘celebrate’ in Dublin.

Some of them clearly managed to enjoy themselves, to judge from photos which later emerged of a dishevelled Billy Vunipola staggering out of a nightclub, but it must have been a strange atmosphere?

“We had a good time,” Daly insists. “It was a massive achievement to win the Six Nations back to back... [though] obviously, when you lose the game and still get the trophy it’s a weird feeling.”

Daly is hoping it will be joy unconfined for those of an English persuasion when he returns to Dublin today with Wasps. The Premiership leaders take on Leinster for a place in the semifinals of the European Champions Cup and this time there will be no consolation prize if they lose.

On paper, the match-up has all the makings of a humdinger; two teams bristling with attacking intent, both top of their respective leagues, back at the Aviva Stadium, Ireland’s Six Nations win (which involved multiple players from both teams) still fresh in the memory, Stuart Lancaster coaching the opposition, the battle for British and Irish Lions selection simmering away in the background.

If Daly is at all fazed by the magnitude of what is at stake, either today or over the next weeks and months with the Premiership play-offs and the Lions, he does a good job of hiding it. He appears supremely relaxed, back in the bosom of his Wasps family for the first time in 10 weeks.

In fact, for such a fizzing, electric player, someone who, by all accounts, is a bundle of energy in camp, who Wasps captain Joe Launchbury (to whose daughter he is godfather) says “likes to think of himself as a bit of a practical joker”, Daly plays the straightest of bats.

Take this, for example, on the prospect of going head-to-head with potential Lions rival Garry Ringrose this afternoon: “We’re not thinking about [the Lions]. It’s just getting out there, playing well and seeing where that takes us.”

Or this on his progress as a player over the past 18 months and whether he has learnt from team-mates Kurtley Beale and Willie le Roux: “I feel like I’m reading the game well at the moment, but you can always get better, learn from people like [Le Roux and Beale] and try to take it to the next level. I haven’t played with Willie yet but Kurtley sees things really early and you try to learn from that because it’s a massive thing to see space in the back field early, to see where the defenders are. He’s a world-class player and a seasoned international player. So, if he says your line’s wrong, your line’s probably wrong and you probably have to change it.”

Or this on the prospect of ‘getting revenge’ on the Irish at the Aviva: “Every game is different. We go back every year to Premiership stadiums. We lost at Northampton once, went back and beat them by quite a lot. It is a new game, a new day.”

But, surely, he must have learnt something from that game? What do Wasps need to do differently from England against a Leinster team expected to be just as physical? “Just play the conditions a little bit better. It was wet when we played and we probably could have adapted a little quicker but that’s something that happens on the pitch on the day. I don’t think there is a lot to transfer from that.”

Maybe the fact that Daly keeps his cards close to his chest is not all that surprising when you consider how young he is. For all that he has established himself in just a few short months as an indispensable cog in Jones’s England machine – and, in all probability, in Warren Gatland’s Lions squad – he is only 24. Daly is still finding his feet. Jones considered him sufficiently wet behind the ears to shield him from media duties during the Six Nations.