Why do you think it's called wasted spark?

the coil pack is basically 2 coils in one unit. 1 and 4, 2 and 3 will fire at the same time, one plug will fire on the exhaust stroke every time.

the driver is wired correctly for the coil to be connected as matt has it, as it started and ran a car with the leads on this way.

if swapping the plug leads over across the coil solves the issue, the wiring loom must be incorrectly wired to the coil,, so the two outer pins on the coil loom would need swapping over.