To previous generations of international rugby union players, popping into a London nightclub for 20 minutes, reportedly to drop some tickets off for a mate and without consuming any alcohol, must seem like a laughably innocuous reason for a dynamic rising star for Wasps and England to be dropped two days before the Calcutta Cup match. Take a former star for Wasps and England, who one evening on tour in Paris, in 1992, stripped almost to the buff and, covered in butter and salt, took on and beat a French No 8, a hulk of a bloke called Bernard, in a sumo wrestling match. Linda Uttley could teach Danny Cipriani a thing or two about painting the town red.

Danny Cipriani, widely acknowledged to be the most exciting rugby talent to have emerged in England since Jonny Wilkinson and the very epitome of a young player in a hurry, was not quite quick enough to avoid the attentions of a lurking photographer as he left a London nightspot in the small hours of yesterday morning, and as a result, he was thrown out of the national team for tomorrow's Calcutta Cup match with Scotland at Murrayfield. It would have been the 20-year-old's first start at Test level. The best he can hope for now is a common or garden league game for his club, Wasps.

When the rapper Eminem crosses swords with someone, you can usually guarantee that sparks will fly. So, understandably perhaps, there has been some uneasy shuffling over at the London-based publishers Orion during the past few days.

Sale's Sébastien Chabal plunged over in the dying moments to condemn Leicester to successive defeats on Saturday, following last week's reverse at London Irish .

They scoffed at the prospect. Wales, with 13 Ospreys starting here and a couple more on the bench, would provide a fascinating examination of that old theory that the best club side are entitled to overcome adecent international one. But England defeated by a club side? Even Wales's new coach, Warren Gatland, spoke beforehand of apprehension, of being twitchy and nervous. Going to Twickenham, he opined, was like a League One club going to Manchester United in an FA Cup tie.

Ryan Lamb kicks like a mule and tackles like a jackass. Young Lamb kicked Gloucester to an important victory with six penalties out of six with the toe of his right boot. It's his Achilles heel that is the worry.

Munster have developed a prototype – the only ambush in history that arrives without an element of surprise. The Thomond Park factor is part of Irish folklore, and the beating of Wasps here adds to the legend. Wasps, who won the Heineken Cup so impressively last season, knew exactly what they were walking into, and yet were still powerless to prevent the mugging. Ian McGeechan, Wasps' director of rugby and one of the most experienced coaches in the game, is not one to cry foul, but he came pretty close to it. He kept talking about "tough calls".

It has been a vintage Heineken Cup round-robin campaign – perhaps the most captivating in the 13-year history of world rugby's outstanding club competition. All 10 of this weekend's matches have something riding on them, as did the two played in Glasgow and Biarritz last night, with each of the eight quarter-final places available to the strongest bidders. Under the circumstances, it is just a little difficult to understand why Wasps, the reigning champions, want the tournament format flushed down the nearest toilet. Can it be they simply crave an easier life?

A classy and clinical performance against a second-string Llanelli Scarlets side yesterday, set Wasps up for rugby's Mission Impossible next week.

It is becoming fashionable. A week after Lawrence Dallaglio announced his retirement from international rugby, Raphaël Ibañez, another senior figure at Wasps, was heading reluctantly towards Sunset Boulevard.

Brian Ashton's first act on succeeding his one-time protg Andy Robinson as head coach of England a year or so ago was to phone Phil Vickery, the World Cup-winning prop with a long history of career-threatening injuries and an equally long history of recovering from them, and offer him the captaincy. It seemed a good call at the time, and appeared even more inspired when Vickery played a blinder in dragging the team kicking and screaming into a second successive global final.