Joe Worsley comes out fighting for Wasps as he plays down clash in training

As defending champions, the players and management know it simply is not good enough as they prepare to face Castres in the opening Heineken Cup pool match at Adams Park on Sunday.

A training ground disagreement is merely an irritation because the bigger picture is all that Ian McGeechan, their director of rugby, and head coach Shaun Edwards are worried about. They do not dodge the issue but want to move on swiftly, recognising that Europe's premier club tournament offers an opportunity to boost self belief.

Worsley says: "There is always extra excitement when it's Heineken Cup week because you are playing teams you don't normally come across. That certainly adds spice to the situation.

"Because of our defeats there is a different feel. We didn't play that well at the start but we are getting their slowly. Let's see if it clicks this weekend."

With the retirement of former captain Lawrence Dallaglio, it has fallen to men like Worsley (right) to accept greater leadership responsibilities. Very few first-team regulars leave Wasps to join other clubs and they believe in the motto: 'Once a Wasp, always a Wasp'.

Wasps' influence reaches far beyond merely playing the game. Former captain Rob Andrew is director of elite rugby at the Rugby Football Union; ex-director of rugby Nigel Melville is in charge of USA Rugby; centre Damian Hopley is chief executive of the Professional Rugby Players' Association; Warren Gatland is head coach of Wales; scrum-half Rob Howley is the Welsh backs coach; John Mitchell, the ex-All Blacks coach, is now in charge of Western Force; scrum-half Steve Bates is Newcastle's director of rugby and No8 Dean Ryan holds the same role at Gloucester.

The 2009 Lions tour to South Africa will be coached by four current or former Wasps in McGeechan, Edwards, Gatland and Howley. Not bad for a club that used to shoe-horn their players into sub-standard training and playing facilities at Sudbury then decamped to Loftus Road before settling on Adams Park.

The present first team features the latest crop of talented players to come through the club's academy system and includes Cipriani, Haskell, Dominic Waldouck and Tom Rees. These players revel in each other's company and are treating the Cipriani incident as a mildly interesting distraction. In Haskell's case, it was a chance to remind anyone who would listen that he once got into a training ground fight with the club's fearsome Trevor Leota, the bull-necked Samoan hooker.

Leota hit so hard in the tackle that team-mates would wait to see what colour of training top he picked and then fought to be on his side. Rees says: "The bottom line with Hask is that he is trying to live off the fact that he survived a fight with Trevor Leota in a bid to develop a personality for himself."

Rees has been a shining light amid the inconsistency that has dogged Wasps this season and is adamant the team will turn things around against Castres to erase all memory of the training ground bust-up.

He says: "From the point of view of a fight, if it was a couple of forwards then it may have been different. But it was two backs.

"In terms of the results this season, yes, we have just one win. However, no one is hitting the panic button and I am still convinced that if we can just relax about the situation then you will see us get back to our best. The bottom line is that our performances haven't been good enough.

"The banter between the guys is still there but the results do tend to narrow your focus in the build up to the next match.

"There haven't been that many stories you can rip into the guys about. And how can you have a go at Danny for going out with Kelly Brook? What are you going to say? 'Hey, Danny, you are going out with a really, really good looking girl!' Not too much to get stuck into there."