On a day that amply demonstrated the ludicrousness of playing a full Premiership programme on international weekends, with squads decimated by call-ups, Wasps overhauled Bath to go second in the table.
A late penalty from the Harlequins replacement fly-half Tim Swiel condemned the west countrymen to a 21-20 defeat at the Stoop, while Wasps held off a late, albeit inevitably futile, fightback from Sale to win 34-24. They remain four points behind Saracens at the summit as the double-winners beat Gloucester 24-20 in a match one suspects they might have won more comfortably with a full squad available.
Swiel sent the long-range winning kick swirling over five minutes from time to send Bath to only their second league defeat this season, after Nathan Catt’s try had put the visitors in front. Kane Palmer-Newport and Tim Visser exchanged tries before the break, while the scrum-half Karl Dickson scored on the hour for Harlequins shortly before Catt went over.
With England’s Eddie Jones watching on and perhaps with his back-row injury worries in mind, Quins’ Jack Clifford put in a mighty defensive shift.
Meanwhile at the Ricoh Arena, Ashley Johnson celebrated a move back from hooker to flanker with two tries as Wasps looked to put the disappointment of last weekend’s shock defeat to Gloucester behind them. Rob Miller also scored two in two minutes after the full-back’s fellow former Sale Shark Danny Cipriani had opened the scoring with a wonderful try on the counter.
“Ash was outstanding today,” said Dai Young, the Wasps director of rugby. “He’s a real club man and is happy to play in either position. As a flanker, he obviously has a much freer role but his statistics are remarkably the same whichever position he plays.
“I always felt we were in control but it wasn’t fantastic. Although we were good in patches, I’m disappointed that we gave away so many points in the second half. Sale were a dogged team but the introduction of our replacements caused us to become disjointed.”
Bryn Evans scored his and Sale’s second try with 14 minutes to play and 11 later Mike Haley, the promising full-back, darted through a gap to give the Salford side vain hope of a losing bonus point. It would have been, in truth, barely deserved.
Brad Barritt is perhaps further from Jones’s eye for an international recall but he impressed his Saracens coach, Mark McCall, with a rare try amid a strong performance, in a Saracens’ win sealed by Alex Lozowski’s 15 points from the tee.
“It was a really tough, close game which could have gone either way,” McCall said. “I guess at this time of year, these kind of games, it’s just about getting the result and we were fortunate enough to get that result. We weren’t perfect, far from it, but I do think we showed resilience at crucial times and bounced back from a few pretty poor scores.
“That first 60 seconds of defence was pretty awful. I thought Brad Barritt was a clear man of the match. Some of his tackling was out of this world.”
Ben Morgan and Billy Burns scored early tries for Gloucester before the champions hit back through Barritt and Mike Ellery.
