WHAT is wrong with Wasps? They have lost four of their five matches in the Premiership and last Saturday were devastated in Dublin as Leinster sent the scoreboard spinning beyond the 40-point mark. The result summed up their season so far as the Irishmen ran in six tries; a blitz on the most famous blitz defence in the club game. The crisis is not racing towards the champions of England, it is upon them.

Lawrence Dallaglio’s absence is the most frequently cited explanation for this staggering downturn. The more subtle analysis accords the loss of Fraser Waters to Treviso an equally significant part. While there is something in both diagnoses, neither gets to the heart of the matter. Head coach Shaun Edwards would be delighted if the problem were purely personnel but the issue goes deeper.

Wasps’ woes are inextricably bound up with the “protocols”, in particular law 15 and the insistence on referees officiating the breakdown according to the letter of the law; in other words, players must be able to take their full body weight on their two feet when they compete - in attack or defence - at the breakdown. “Sealing off” is the term and the redefinition of this aspect of the game is the component above all else that has transformed the champions from the smartest team in England to a set of nervous ditherers.

The battle of the breakdown has evolved over the years. Inch by inch, players lowered their torsos until their bodies were all bar horizontal, with nothing but the tip of a man’s boots in contact with the ground. These draped figures were able to “seal off” any quick ball, if not steal it. There were no finer exponents than Wasps and no individual was more adept than Dallagl-io. It is no exaggeration to say that control at the breakdown was the central point of the outstanding Wasps sides of the 21st century. Under Edwards they redefined the building blocks of a successful team. They concentrated less on scrums than other teams and treated lineouts with an almost cursory disregard, while the rest of the Premiership clung to the conviction that the set-piece was the launch pad towards victory.

Wasps were often overwhelmed at the lineout and wobbled at the scrum but still they racked up trophies. That is because of the quality of their work in open play. They may not have been winning as much first-phase ball as their main rivals, but once the ball went into the contact area they claimed control with their brinkmanship at the breakdown. The only ball recycled was generally slow.

When a team tried to keep slow ball in hand close to that breakdown, the athletic power of the tackler frequently gained the upper hand.

Best of all for Wasps was when teams attempted to run it wide. Then the blitz and Waters came into their own, forcing the mistake, the turnover or the intercept, and Wasps were away, in business with a broken-field ball and a host of superb ball-carriers from one to 15.

The static imperatives of the set-piece were replaced by the dynamism and guile of the open field and its contact zones as the fundamental features of the modern club game in England. Wasps were so good at redefining the rules at the point of contact that the Rugby Football Union has been more insistent than any other union on policing the protocols. Wasps became too good for their own good at playing referees as well as opposing teams.

This growing insistence on refereeing to the letter of the law has whipped Wasps’ foundations from beneath their feet. Northampton beat them because Wasps were incapable of staying firmly on those feet. Chris White rightly refereed them to the point of extinction and defeat.

Against Bath, Edwards had his team far more disciplined at the breakdown but that guaranteed Bath the quick second-phase and third-phase possession they could only dream of in last season’s Premiership playoff match. Given quick ball, Bath won the game and would have run away with it had Butch James kicked his goals. The Wasps blitz defence was conspicuous by its absence.

Too often the blitz defence is regarded as a defensive system in its own right. It is not. It relies heavily on the opposition ball being so slow that the defensive unit can align itself and target the opposition. If the men at the contact area have not slowed the momentum, the blitz defenders are still back-pedalling as the attack moves into its next phase. Rushing infield to smash an opponent from a starting position on the heels is next to impossible.

Paul Sackey has hardly levelled a single opponent coming from out to in. Josh Lewsey’s trademark smash is no more than modern history. The blitz is more a risk than an asset to a team defending against a side on the front foot. Hence the previously unbelievable collapse last Saturday night.

Wasps, more than any other team in Europe, have been hammered by the reversion to the more rigid days of refereeing because, more than any other team in Europe, they defined standard practice at the breakdown. The inability to slow ball without conceding the risk of three points has left the blitz in tatters.

Wasps’ core philosophy is in pieces; so is the confidence of the players. After the Leinster defeat Edwards mentioned the failure of the team to catch high balls. He is right, it is a problem that none of the three men playing full-back has remotely looked likely to address.

Basic skills are lacking in international players but these faults are symptomatic of the real cause, which is a crisis of confidence based on the very essence of their game being taken away from them. Wasps have to tear up a winning game plan and start again. It will not be easy.

It was a bitter irony for Edwards that he was named defence coach for the Lions in the week Wasps conceded 40 points. The outstanding British coach of the past few years is under the spotlight as never before.