London Wasps interim Director of Rugby Leon Holden has today named his side to face London Irish at the Madejski Stadium in the Aviva Premiership Rugby on Sunday.

Holden has made six changes from the starting line -up that lost to Northampton Saints last weekend.

Richard Haughton is out of the game as a result of an injury picked up last weekend, meaning that Mark van Gisbergen returns to the starting line-up at full back while Dom Waldouck, who pulled out of the side last weekend in the warm-up, returns to partner Riki Flutey in the centre. Joe Simpson returns to his favoured position of scrum half, allowing Christian Wade to take his place on the wing and make his first start in the Aviva Premiership Rugby.

The front row of Tim Payne, Rob Webber and Zak Taulafo remains unchanged from last weekend but in the second row Marty Veale returns to the team, replacing the injured captain Richard Birkett, to partner Simon Shaw.

John Hart keeps his place on the blind-side flank and is named as captain in the absence of Birkett. Joining him in the back row is Will Matthews at open-side, who impressed playing for the Wasps A team on his return from injury last week, and Andy Powell at eight, who was rested for the Northampton clash.

Looking ahead to the game Leon Holden said: “Despite a couple of injuries we have picked up, it is great to see a number of guys return to the squad who will give the team a really lift. Nobody was pleased with last week’s result and the squad has worked really hard this week to avoid a repeat. I was very happy with how well the Wasps A team performed in the week in beating their Gloucester counterparts and to reward that effort we have brought in Christian Wade on the wing and Joe Launchbury on the bench who are two young players with a huge future at Wasps.”

“As I said last week, with the middle section of the table being so tight, a run of good results at this stage of the season could drastically change the outcome of our season.”

London Wasps team to face London Irish on Sunday 3rd April, KO 3pm

15 Mark van Gisbergen

14 Christian Wade

13 Dom Waldouck

12 Riki Flutey

11 David Lemi

10 Dave Walder

9 Joe Simpson

1 Tim Payne

2 Rob Webber

3 Zak Taulafo

4 Simon Shaw

5 Marty Veale

6 John Hart (c)

7 Will Matthews

8 Andy Powell

16 Tom Lindsay

17 Charlie Beech

18 Ben Broster

19 Joe Launchbury

20 Dan Ward-Smith

21 Nic Berry

22 Josh Lewsey