THE Wasps' latest 43 points to 47 setback leaves them as holders of the wooden spoon in the Premier Trophy Southern Group qualifying table and unless changes are made pretty soon, it's going to be a long, hard and pretty fruitless British Premier League campaign for the Hayley Stadium outfit.

That starts with a trip to face highly-fancied Newcastle Diamonds May 28 and soon after that match, the Green Sheet averages will be announced. The Wasps, by team manager Neil Street's own admission, are too weak at the bottom end of their side with second string Tommy Palmer and reserve Nick Simmons managing to score just one point between them yesterday. Simmons, it must be said, had the misfortune to blow at engine at the starting gate of heat two's re-run and thereafter used Palmer's machinery to compete.

Nonetheless, those changes must be made - and the sooner the better if the Wasps are to compete with the best.

Reading began the meeting leading by only a couple of points following their 46-44 win at Smallmead Stadium on April 9 and there was much hope that the Wasps could overturn the deficit and land the first bonus point of the PT campaign.

But a 5-1 maximum from visiting riders Paul Clews and Charlie Gjedde quickly opened the aggregate gap to six points and the Wasps never really recovered from that poor start.

Having said that, a 5-1 from heat 12, thanks to Glenn Cunningham and toothache-victim Scott Smith, and a 4-2 win in heat 14 from Chris Neath and Krister Marsh meant the Wasps went in to the final race with a chance of grabbing a meeting draw.

To that, Cunningham and skipper Steve Masters had to finish ahead of Gjedde and Clews and for a brief moment, the Wasps pair were doing exactly that.

But when Gjedde cut across Masters coming out of lap one' third bend, the Wasps captain was forced out wide and very nearly in to the safety fence. Gjedde's manoeuvre meant the end for Masters and for Wasps' attempt to gain a 45-45 draw from a meeting which had a couple of nasty-looking crashes in heat 12.

The first came at the opening bend when Italian champion Armando Castagna slid in to the boards and in a separate incident at the same corner, Smith. with nowhere to go, couldn't avoid riding over Colvin's body. Amazingly all three joined Cunningham in the re-run which saw Castagna go too wide on the final bend where he smacked hard in to the safety boards near the pits.

This simply wasn't Wasps' day.