They said it would take some time, no matter the calibre of signing and the feeling of a fresh start in September. And it certainly is doing that. Halfway through the Premiership season Gloucester remain exactly where they were when Nigel Davies, their previous director of rugby, received his marching orders – which is to say in ninth place and worthy of it.
This time the indignity is seasoned by a second home defeat of the Christmas period, their fourth in five, eight days after the last. And that was a record defeat to their bitter enemies, Bath. The good people of Kingsholm may have expected a reaction after that. Wasps arrived buoyed – potentially distracted – by the success of their first outing in Coventry the weekend before, having not won away in the Premiership this season. You might have thought a good reaction from the Cherry and Whites would be enough to take it.
Indeed, they burst into the game as if following a script handed down to them from the Shed itself. Jonny May scored a fine try after a mere 42 seconds, brandishing his remarkable power and elasticity to reach out of a collision in cartoon style and touch down. Bath and record defeats suddenly seemed long in the past. But Wasps rode the early blow and played their way to a comfortable 24-14 lead at the end of an entertaining first half.
“We’re disappointed to have lost,” said David Humphreys, Gloucester’s director of rugby. “We set out at the start of the season to turn Kingsholm into a fortress and recent results have not backed that up. The first half was a disappointment. We talked in the week about having a reaction to the Bath game but we lacked an edge. It took some pretty strong words at half-time to get that reaction.”
There was an improvement in the second half, aided in no small part by Wasps’ apparent inability to hang on to the ball in the third quarter. The Gloucester scrum waxed, earning Greig Laidlaw three shots at goal to move the home side to within a point at the hour mark.
Another development that seemed to improve fluency was to move James Hook to full-back and introduce Billy Burns at fly-half. Humphreys is adamant that Hook’s future remains at No10 but uncertainty over his best position has dogged the lavishly talented Welshman. Uncertainty now – anywhere, let alone at fly-half – is one niggle that Gloucester could do without.
Meanwhile, Wasps are quietly working their way in among the coterie of sides in pursuit of a play-off spot. This maiden away win moves them up to sixth and the first words afterwards of Dai Young, their director of rugby, inevitably referred to the throwing of a monkey from their back, suggesting Wasps were fired by powerful motivations of their own. The calm and precise manner in which they picked Gloucester apart in the first half was impressive indeed, with their back row of James Haskell and the colossal duo of Ashley Johnson and Nathan Hughes developing into one of the Premiership’s most formidable.
But Wasps are not short on talent out wide either and it was to their wings that they turned for the response to May’s early score. Christian Wade looped round to give Tom Varndell the telling inch on Steve McColl after Haskell had burst through the fringes earlier in the move. Varndell went through the full-back’s challenge and turned the ball inside for Wade to score.
Ten minutes later it was Varndell’s turn, latching on to a wickedly placed kick by Andy Goode for try number two. Gloucester responded with some traditional strengths, mauling their way over after half an hour from a penalty kicked to the corner to pull to within three. But Wasps did exactly the same back at them three minutes before the break, Hughes’s try an Identikit reply to Matt Kvesic’s.
Wasps’ lineout remained dominant throughout but their scrum suffered in the third quarter and for a moment it looked as if Gloucester might yet turn the game round. Bradley Davies entered the fray to firm things up, though, and Gloucester’s decision to put another penalty into the corner did not bear fruit.
Instead two penalties, one from Eliot Daly near halfway, earned the visitors the points and Gloucester yet more time on the thinking step.
Gloucester McColl (Burns, ht); Sharples, Atkinson, Twelvetrees (capt), May; Hook, Laidlaw (Robson, 71); Wood (Thomas, 72), Hibbard (Davidiuk, 71), Afoa (Knight, 73), Savage, Palmer (Hudson, 67), Kalamafoni, Kvesic, Evans (Moriarty, 67).
Tries May, Kvesic. Cons Laidlaw 2. Pens Laidlaw 3.
Wasps Masi (Miller 23); Wade, Daly, Jacobs, Varndell; Goode, Simpson; Mullan (McIntyre ,68), Shervington (Festuccia, 52), Cittadini (Cooper-Woolley, 58), Gaskell, Myall (Davies, 61), Johnson (Jones, 65), Haskell (capt), Hughes.
Tries Wade, Varndell, Hughes. Cons Goode 3. Pens Goode 2, Daly.
Referee Dean Richards. Attendance 16,000.
