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Italy would be 'crazy' to ignore Odogwu says Blackett
By Chris Jones
Wasps boss Lee Blackett believes Italy would be “crazy” not to offer in-form Paolo Odogwu the chance to play international rugby.
Odogwu has made a major impact with ball in hand for Wasps this season including a brilliant display of try-scoring power running in the win over Bath and he qualifies for Italy through his father. Odogwu was born in Coventry and has been capped by England at U20 level and arrived at Wasps via Sale who must now be questioning their decision to let him go. Odogwu has made 361 metres with the ball more ground than any other Premiership player this season.
Odogwu, 23, is seen by Blackett as an outside centre although he has made his mark on the wing in recent seasons and the Wasps director of rugby said,” Italy have been aware of Paulo for a while and they would be pretty crazy if they have seen his performance at the weekend and not be making contact.
“I fully expect conversations to happen now and it would be exciting for him. He has a big x-factor and maybe on the wing have not seen that enough and if you at him at 13 his attack is x-factor. He is also a good defender and good over the ball and has more to his game than pace.
“The way he can impose himself on a game is with ball in hand and taking people on and has built his confidence. When he has moved back to the wing he has been looking for the ball and we have moved him into certain positions from set-pieces because we are trying to use him as much as possible.”
Blackett does expect the European games to go ahead this weekend and is predicting that Premiership matches will be moved to fill those dates with the Heineken and Challenge Cup games rearranged for later in the season.
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Latest Comments
I think we need to get innovative with the new laws.
Now red cards are only 20 minutes, Razor should send Finau on a head hunting mission to hospitalise their 10 with a shoulder to the chops.
Give the conspiracy theorists a win.
Go to commentsEngland played well enough to win but couldnt score when they needed to and couldnt defend a couple of X-Factor moments from Telea which was ultimately the difference. They needed to hold the ball more and make the AB's make more tackles. Territorially they were good for the first 60. Defending their lead and playing pragmatic rugby in the last 20 was silly. The AB's always had the potential to come back. England still have a long way to go, definite progress would have been shown had they won but it seems they are still stuck where they were shortly after the six nations and their tour to NZ
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