By Bryn Palmer

Wasps 57-20 Northampton

One more down, two to go.

This never-ending season should have quite a sting in the tail for Wasps.

After demolishing Northampton - the team that finished one place below them in the Zurich Premiership - for the second time in six weeks on Sunday, they are on the verge of a momentous double.

If they have their way, it will end with successive triumphs at Twickenham, after which they will be able to call themselves European as well as English champions.

For a third of the team, the longest season in professional rugby history will still have another month to run.

Providing Lawrence Dallaglio, Josh Lewsey, Joe Worsley, Stuart Abbott and Simon Shaw come through the next fortnight unscathed, there will still be the small matter of a southern hemisphere tour with England to tackle.

Test matches on consecutive weekends against New Zealand (two) and Australia will follow before they can finally take a break at the end of June.

WASPS' RECENT RUN (h) Northampton (ZP) W 31-5 (h) Gloucester (HC) W 34-3 (a) Leeds (ZP) W 11-7 (a) Munster (HC) W 37-32 (a) Gloucester (ZP) L 25-28 (h) Leicester (ZP) L 17-48 (h) N'mpton (ZP p-o) W 57-20

Since returning from Australia at the same time last year, they will have had barely a month off in the preceding 12.

But when there are trophies to be won, the marathon men of the English game show no signs of letting a gruelling schedule get to them.

After successive defeats to Gloucester and Leicester - a record one at their Wycombe home - in their final league matches, there were suggestions the Wasps well was running dry.

Not a bit of it. The Saints were sent marching back to Northampton with their tails between their legs, victims of an eight-try mauling.

And ominously for Toulouse and Bath, their opponents over the next two weekends, Dallaglio reckons Wasps "haven't quite hit top form yet."

They are already English champions of course, having trounced Gloucester, the team that finished 15 points ahead of them, in the Premiership play-off final last May.

That completed their own domestic/European double, after Bath were dispatched a week previously in the Parker Pen Cup final.

This year they hope to go one better and land the big one, the Heineken Cup, as well as retaining their domestic title, matching Leicester's feat of 2001 and 2002.

Wasps started their Heineken campaign by beating Perpignan

And despite the demands of another campaign disrupted by World Cup and Six Nations calls, Warren Gatland's side show every sign of peaking at the right time again.

Knowing Bath would probably not slip up in the final fortnight probably accounted for a lack of focus against Gloucester and Leicester, when the result did not really matter.

But as Dallaglio said after Sunday's victory over Northampton, "when we need to win, we win."

After losing at Leicester in November, their fourth leage defeat before the turn of the year, Wasps reeled off 19 wins from 21 matches in all competitions.

Only surprise home defeats to the Celtic Warriors (a Heineken pool match) and first division Pertemps Bees in the Powergen Cup briefly interrupted progress.

Once Dallaglio and company returned from Six Nations duty, Wasps dismantled domestic rivals Northampton and Gloucester before digging deep for an epic win over Munster in Dublin.

Munster, with the majority of the support behind them, would have been an intimidating proposition for just about any other side in Europe.

But Wasps showed their stamina and class on a blisteringly hot day in a match Test-like in its intensity.

Toulouse, defending their European crown, will ensure a similar occasion at Twickenham next Sunday.

If Wasps go on to match Leicester and prevail at home and in Europe in the same season, they will have earned every plaudit coming their way.