Ibanez out for the count

"The club have a fantastic medical team and they have been looking after me. The bang I took on my head against Sale was the third this season and that is why it was decided to visit a specialist who deals with the top boxers here in Britain. His advice was to avoid physical contact and so I am going to do that for six weeks and restrict myself to lots of hard work in the gym and rugby skills training.

"What I have made clear is that it is not about me and only about the squad as a whole. I have absolute faith in the players and coaches here and our win at Edinburgh will, I believe, be a turning point for the the season. I know we didn't play the kind of rugby we want but we got the victory and it's about finding a way to win.

"The balance in our game was much better and our kicking has improved and that is what the game requires. Now, we have to repeat that against a very tough Edinburgh side."

Ibanez was offered the chance to spend the month with his family in Dax. However, he has opted to remain at the club to help in whatever way he can during the coming weeks.

"My family is going to come over here for Christmas," he added.

"The club were very good and asked me if I wanted to go home but I only went for a short time because I want to be involved here with the squad."

Simon Shaw, the England lock, returns to the starting line-up after finally overcoming a leg injury sustained during the Tests and his power and ball-carrying will be a major boost against an Edinburgh side under the control of Andy Robinson.

The former England coach will be without the services of flanker Ross Rennie, who has been hit with a for two-week ban for a dangerous tackle on Paul Sackey last Friday.

Robinson was very unhappy with the refereeing of last Friday's match and believes a win at Wasps is possible, although there are injury doubts over a number of his players.

Robinson said: "It is important that we raise our levels throughout the whole of this game. Travelling down to Wasps will be a huge challenge and we will be concentrating on improving our overall accuracy.

"Our performance in the second half [on Friday] was encouraging and, although everyone was naturally disappointed with the result, the confidence in the squad is still very much intact."

Wasps head coach Shaun Edwards is hoping his team can feed off the confidence generated by that win and said: "It certainly gives us a bit of momentum but we can't afford to lose another game in the Heineken Cup if we want to have any chance of qualifying.

"We're very, very cautious of the Edinburgh team. They won at Castres in their last away game, so this is another massive game for us. You can see the reason why they won away in Castres. They're a very, very well-coached team and have got some potent attacking threats.

"Scotland pushed South Africa incredibly close and could have won that game and you can see why because the Edinburgh team is stacked full of Scottish internationals. Edinburgh are a team to be reckoned with and respected."