The theory that the Guinness Premiership, like football’s Premier League, can only be won these days by teams with great riches has been so entirely demolished during the past seven years by Wasps, the cottage industry with multi-national results, that many of their opponents must be contemplating buying their own frayed shoestring simply to try to emulate them.

Ian McGeechan, Shaun Edwards and their team-ethic squad will again be desperate to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear this season even though whenever Wasps win a trophy they seem to shrink in size as a club and as a visible business power, rather than vice versa.

The other drawback of their environment is that most of their squad soon begin to interest a raft of national selectors, so that when the Tests come around the groundsman has the place to himself.

Wasps woe? Lawrence Dallaglio has gone, so too Fraser Waters, who was in such a higher class than most who have played centre for England in the past five years that comparisons were brutal; Danny Cipriani, rapid recovery or not, is still unfit, the players will be scattering to their national squads and the purse strings are tight enough to make you squeak.

And yet until another club demonstrates the magical ability of Wasps to win big games, until Gloucester learn to sprint down the final straight, until Leicester rediscover their ruthless edges, until Sale Sharks play more often to their potential, then you still feel that Wasps will take all the beating. No Lawrence? When you have core players such as Josh Lewsey, Raphael Ibanez, Riki Flutey and Simon Shaw, when you assume that Tom Rees and James Haskell will be even better this season, when you remember that both adversity and parsimony makes them stronger, then you have the package – wrapped up in string and brown paper, but substantial all the same.

Gloucester at mighty Kingsholm bring in double the gate receipts of Wasps at High Wycombe and seem to have double the squad size, now augmented by the accomplished Olly Barkley in the midfield and the impressive Greg Somerville up front. Yet for all their wonderful resources, what would they not give for the hardheaded tactical nous of Wasps?

It was unpleasant to see the talented Ryan Lamb struggle to keep composure in some of the major matches last season and significant to hear Dean Ryan, the director of rugby, explain that he expects Barkley to play at No 10 frequently this season.

Heyneke Meyer, the South African, is the latest coach to try to assert himself in the particular local arena that is Tigers rugby. His Afrikaner culture and the open spaces of the Super 14 are far removed from the culture prevailing in the Premiership.

However, Martin Corry, the titanic Leicester leader, hinted last week that the new man is settling in. If that it so then Meyer has one other key task – he has to fix things at fly-half.

They have a small queue to fill the jersey of the maddening but match-winning Andy Goode and the list comprises Toby Flood, on whom the jury ruling on true Test class is out, and Derick Hougaard, Meyer’s pet fly-half. Hougaard’s early career as an attempted Springbok fly-half was so flaky that he could have filled a box of breakfast cereal on his own.

Sale are the best bet as bolters, Worcester Warriors the most likely to charge from the lower reaches; you worry for Bristol, where lack of deep pockets means that the team is evolving only slowly, and for Newcastle Falcons, because their rebuilding seems to have stopped short of a teak-like pack. But they will all fear Wasps; it’s not the life in the chequebook that always counts, it’s the life in the men.