JOSH Lewsey has warned his team-mates that playing for Wasps means there is no excuse for failure.

The club's Guinness Premiership campaign has been heavily disrupted by losing swathes of players to the World Cup and Six Nations, but Lewsey says it's only results that count.

The full-back said: "Of course you can look at various factors and find mitigating circumstances and excuses, but that's not the business we're in.

"The business we're in is trying to win things and being as self-critical as possible. That's the only way you improve.

"We want to be in the top four and we want to be challenging for trophies.

"We've finished fourth and fifth and are currently eighth.

"In my mind, for a club with our aspirations it's not acceptable to be in this position, especially with the players we have and the track record we have.

"We've got an English-based team and it served us pretty well over the years. Leicester have an English-based team as well and they have also done very well.

"Your good players might win you the one-off games, but it's the squad that wins you trophies.

"You look at our second team last year, we won the second team championship while we won the Heineken Cup. Strength in depth has not been a problem.

"The squad is absolutely good enough to get into the top four and it's actually delivering it on the field."

At the half-way point in the Premiership season, Wasps have some ground to make up.

Tomorrow they go to Bath, traditionally a difficult hunting ground for the men in black, with their internationals available for once.

Lewsey said: "We haven't been as consistent as we'd have liked, especially away from home.

"This weekend we play one of the top teams in the country, on their patch where statistically we haven't done very well.

"But we need to win the game, simple as that. If we want to win silverware, we are getting to the must-win stage of the season.

"Pitches are starting to get harder, the weather's getting better and that's good for the sort of rugby that favours us.

"So hopefully we can win some games to get in a position to win trophies because the most annoying thing in any job is not achieving your potential.

"This team's potential is enormous but at the moment we aren't delivering it. We could still win two trophies, but we've got some work to do."