Wasps bowed out at Adams Park with a bang as they notched a 44-17 European Rugby Champions Cup Pool Two win over Castres Olympique – but more surprisingly there was barely a whimper from their fans.

The concept of franchises never seems to have sat particularly well with English sport.

Suggested mergers of rugby league teams have rarely lasted, as Huddersfield fans know only too well, and in football such ideas usually leads to an instant backlash from fans – most famously in the instance of soccer being forcibly transplanted to Milton Keynes.

However, while there is now an AFC Wimbledon back plying their trade in the Football League, there would appear to be little sign of a huge groundswell that would see an ‘RUFC Wasps’ setting up a professional club back in Middlesex at Sudbury.

Wasps fans have been an understanding bunch as their team has moved from their traditional home in the north west of the capital to west London at QPR’s Loftus Road home and then on to High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, to play at the home of Wycombe Wanderers.

They have shown great patience with moves that admittedly have not been too big a break with their traditional base – however the revolution that is the club’s move to the Ricoh Arena in Coventry is quite simply something else.

However, it seems to have prompted little dissent from the Wasps fans.

It is hard to know whether this is because supporters are happy enough to travel, or that they may shift their allegiance to another club in the capital.

From Wasps point of view it must have been a tough decision to make, but one that would appear initially to make sound financial sense even if it means throwing any notion of tradition to the four winds.

Already they have reportedly sold 23,000 tickets for Sunday’s Aviva Premiership clash with London Irish in Coventry, which is stunningly more than the aggregate of the home crowds at Adams Park for Wasps first four home games this season.

While that would suggest Wasps will be essentially be facing a battle to win over a new audience and keep them on board, the club are working to try and retain their loyal London following.

“It was goodbye to Adams Park, but hopefully it is not goodbye to all our supporters, and we are doing everything in our power to encourage them to follow us to the Ricoh Arena,” said Wasps director of rugby Dai Young.

Well it is easily done, just put on the usual away travel coaches for home games.

Similes, what are they like?

Promotional stunts come in all shapes and sizes as the festive season approaches and Super League tried their hand by unwrapping a Christmas present with a difference at Manchester’s Trafford Centre.

They unveiled a special toy box containing life-size action figures for the coming 2015 campaign, the contents in fact being players from the clubs who then went out to meet a sizeable crowd.

The only problem was that the collection was not complete as two figures were missing – those from Catalans Dragons and Huddersfield’s very own Giants.

Doing their thinking outside the box and being determined not to be toyed with, the two clubs failed to show.

Now while the Dragons might claim a trip from Perpignan to a busy shopping centre in Manchester just before Christmas is a little nonsensical, the Giants unfortunately could be perceived to have taken on the role of Scrooge.

However, one man’s piece of marketing genius is another man’s wander over the fine line into madness.

I am guessing that on the promotional team who put this stunt together will have been men of a certain age, probably around my age, who will have received Action Man for Christmas when youngsters and will have conceived this whole show from that experience.

To be fair it said on the box ‘collect them all’ and between them the Giants and Dragons have supplied that most rare and collectable item of all – the Action Man deserter.

Anyway the upshot as far as I can see is that the Rugby Football League will have topped off the wish-list in their little letter to Father Christmas this year with ‘Santa please bring me the Dragons and Giants action figures’ – instead of the usual can you please make sure it is Leeds, Saints or Wigan in the Grand Final.

Sky Sports pundit Alan McInally was the latest to find himself pulled up for the ‘textbook’ schoolboy error of describing Burnley’s home victory over Southampton at the weekend as “a damp squid”.

As this particular mistake is so prevalent, I feel that it is about time that we embrace the idea of the ‘damp squid’ being a metaphor in its own right.

In some senses it could even be seen as the toned down offspring of its parent the ‘damp squib’.

While the ‘squib’ version suggests disappointment after something explosive fails to ignite, the ‘squid’ version – in that being an aquatic creature being wet is pretty much essential for the squid – the phrase should denote the mundanity of something being mind-numbingly obvious.

And by doing that which ever pundit involved can make up their own mind as to whether that is what they really meant to say, while the legions pedants can move on to spotting far more interesting mucked up metaphors and sloppy similes.