There can be no more “should bes” or “what ifs” for London Wasps. If the English champions are to give themselves some new year aspirations after a season of toil and woe, they must beat Edinburgh at Murrayfield this evening, when the Heineken Cup resumes with the second tranche of pool fixtures.

They have won only two of their Guinness Premiership games and their European hopes hang in the balance after an ugly 30-point defeat by Leinster in Dublin in October. One more loss to a Celtic rival will, to all intents, make it impossible for them to emerge from pool two into the knockout stages, and Ian McGeechan knows it. The Wasps director of rugby, who once occupied the same post in Edinburgh with the Scottish Rugby Union, described his club’s hopes of progress as “slim” if Edinburgh repeat their success in the competition of three years ago, when they beat Wasps 32-31. It seems inevitable that Leinster will win the pool, given the harder edge that exists in their play this season, but success this evening will give Wasps the boost to morale that they so clearly need.

It has already been a week out of the ordinary for the club, with the announcement of a new owner in Steve Hayes and a reconstituted board. Moreover, they have their England contingent available once more, of whom seven appear in the starting XV under the captaincy of Phil Vickery, and Dominic Waldouck has recovered from the knee ligament injury that he sustained early in October and returns at centre.

“Everyone understands how big the game is,” McGeechan said. “The players have got their heads down, worked hard and that’s all you want. Our England players coming back have a bit to prove and that’s not a bad thing. I hope there will be the edge to our game which was there last season.”

He takes heart from the most recent displays by Wasps, the one-point defeat by Sale Sharks 12 days ago when the club’s match squad consisted of the only players available, followed by the away win against Newcastle Falcons a week ago. It has not, therefore, been easy to drop an individual such as Dave Walder to the bench, given how influential the fly half has been in the absence on England duty of Danny Cipriani, while Richard Birkett and George Skivington remain in the second row, a decision aided partly by Simon Shaw’s need to recover from a knee injury.

“Our kicking game has been better in the last month,” McGeechan said. “It wasn’t particularly good at the start of the season, when we tried to play too much rugby. At that time we didn’t anticipate the reaction of referees to certain things and I blame myself for that. Now we have more of a feel for it and we have mixed our game up.”

But Chris Paterson, the Scotland utility back, speaks for all his Edinburgh colleagues when he recalls the win over Wasps three years ago as the highlight of his European career. “Wasps went into that game as favourites but we just made good decisions on the day,” he said. “We kicked well, put them under pressure and, as the game wore on, we grew in stature.”

Jim Hamilton returns to their second row, one of 12 internationals in the side, and McGeechan admits that Andy Robinson, the former England head coach now in charge of Edinburgh, has them playing effective rugby. “We have to be careful, because we are just coming together and we have to find our discipline from minute one,” he said. “We have to develop momentum. There have been promising signs in the last fortnight but we have big changes in personnel, we have to come together quickly. But we have to be competitive from here on in, full stop. We have to find that consistency in our game because we still have to get through the Six Nations and we’re well aware of the need to qualify for next season’s Heineken Cup from the Premiership.”

Cardiff Blues, one of two teams to earn ten points from their first two matches, should sustain their unbeaten record in pool six at home to Biarritz, who are in decline, while the bottom two teams in pool four, Ulster and the Scarlets, already have no more than pride to play for at Ravenhill.

By one of those quirks, the leaders of the Premiership, London Irish, must be content with their place in the European Challenge Cup, the second-tier tournament, this evening. They have taken maximum points in pool one and will hope to continue in the same vein in Dax with a team including Alex Corbisiero, the promising 20-year-old prop restored to the front row. Worcester Warriors are similarly well placed in pool three and have Rico Gear, the wing, in their side away to Bourgoin, fresh from his outing with the Barbarians against Australia at Wembley on Wednesday.

Stings in the tale

- The club for whom Lawrence Dallaglio played for 18 years had to adjust to his retirement in May.

- They allowed the experimental law variations to be a burden.

- They had the largest contingent of any club named in England’s elite player squad and have been without them for the past month.

- It is inconceivable that the Lions duties of Ian McGeechan and Shaun Edwards, the Wasps head coach who is also Wales assistant coach, have not had some impact.

- The change in ownership this week has postponed contractual negotiations for players such as Danny Cipriani and James Haskell, which may be unsettling.