Dallaglio completes his French homework

Clive Woodward may be scrabbling around to find a prop to make up his front row to play France this Saturday but he will be picking from riches when it comes to his back-row options.

Lawrence Dallaglio, who missed two days' England training at the start of last week because of a damaged shoulder, turned up at their team hotel last night and reported fully fit after leading Wasps to a conclusive win that takes them level on points with Leicester and Leeds in the fight for the third-place play-off spot.

It was a typical hard-nosed Dallaglio performance. He spent bags of time questioning the New Zealand referee Paul Honiss about Wasps' dire first-half lineout, even more hectoring his own team, but still had time for plenty of hard graft. Seconds before half-time he put in the hit of the match on London Irish's player-coach Brendan Venter, shaking the ball free from the South African's grasp. From the scrum, the former England captain picked up and flicked the ball left to Josh Lewsey, and in the bat of an eye Mark van Gisbergen was in at the posts.

Ten minutes later Dallaglio put Fraser Waters away but with a two-on-one overlap the centre delayed too long. Honiss perhaps harshly called the interception by Paul Sackey a deliberate knock-on and Alex King stepped up to kick the penalty. And at 20-11 the game was effectively over.

"I'm delighted to have played today. Everybody likes to play on a weekend before an international, and I'm looking forward to a tough week's training [with England] and hopefully a game on Saturday," Dallaglio said later. "The team will obviously be selected on merit. I'm just glad to be able to report 100% fit."

Yesterday's game was decided in the backs, Wasps' pace opening huge holes in the Irish defence. It started in the 10th minute when Joe Worsley picked up at the back of a scrum, saw Josh Lewsey coming in from the right and gave the wing a massive gap through the Irish line.

The reply came 19 minutes later when Sackey benefited from a move on the left in which the ball travelled the width of the field through five pairs of hands before Mike Worsley put the wing in at the corner. The try, and an earlier penalty from Barry Everitt, put Irish into a one-point lead at 8-7 but it was not to last.

King, who missed only one kick all afternoon, took Wasps to 10-8, Van Gisbergen's try made it 17-8 and then Wasps went hunting the bonus point necessary to catch Leicester and Leeds.

The third try came from Waters after a build-up marshalled by Martyn Wood - deputising for the injured Rob Howley - by King and finally Paul Volley. The fourth, after much huffing and puffing on the Irish line, came from Craig Dowd, who was bundled over by his own pack with nine minutes to go.

Wasps now have a run-in which includes five of the teams currently at the foot of the table. For Irish the problem is how not to get sucked into the battle at the bottom. And it will not help if Everitt, their first-choice kicker, wastes 14 points as he did yesterday.

Irish's player-coach Conor O'Shea believes it will be tough. "We were poor today. We slipped off too many tackles and didn't get into it. It will be a dogfight for the rest of the season and it will be horrible to be part of it.

"We have a cup semi-final in the next few weeks and if we play like that against Northampton we will be blown away. We didn't deserve to be in the game in a lot of ways. We were playing catch-up rugby and the team playing catch-up rugby always looks rubbish."

· Josh Lewsey was last night called into the England A squad for Friday's match against France in Northampton. The Leeds prop Mike Shelley has also been drafted into the squad.

Wasps: Van Gisbergen; Lewsey, Waters (Erindle, 74), Abbott, Logan (Rudd, 70); King, Wood (Biljon, 76); Dowd, Leota (Greening, 62), Green; Shaw (Scrivener, 72), Birkett; J Worsley, Volley, Dallaglio (capt; Lock, 72).

Tries: Lewsey, Van Gisbergen, Waters, Dowd. Cons: King 3. Pens: King 3.

London Irish: Mapletoft; Sackey, Burrows, Venter, Horak; Everitt, Martens; M Worsley (Hatley, 47), Kirke, Halford (Hardwick, 45), Casey, Kennedy, Gustard (capt), Dahaner, Sheasby.

Try: Sackey. Pens: Everitt 2.

Referee: P Honiss (New Zealand).

Attendance: 8,590.