Wasps had scored eight tries and 64 points at Saracens six days before, but while everything stuck then, it tended to fall apart here. Not that it mattered as they breezed their way to their fifth successive Premiership victory, which hoisted them to third in the table and condemned Bath to another home defeat.
Wasps were not helped, perversely, by Bath’s bashfulness. Such was the lack of confidence of a side that had lost five of its past seven home matches that they played like the away team, defending for long periods. Tackling was what Bath were most proficient at. They lacked the imagination and fluency of their opponents in possession; their set-pieces were, until the final minutes of the opening half, so unproductive that when they launched their first attack on 21 minutes and won a lineout in the Wasps’ 22, the crowd responded with an ironic cheer, groaning again when the move was botched.
Despite carrying the ball for 45 metres to the 325 of their opponents in the first half, Bath should have led at the interval, rather than being 8-6 down. They used a penalty to force an attacking lineout and when Wasps conceded a scrum after a Rhys Priestland chip, Matt Banahan was held up on the line and it took the television match official a while to rule out the claimed try.
Bath had to be satisfied with Priestland’s second penalty and it was an achievement to be only two points behind. Elliot Daly, again impressive in the midfield where his deceptive strength, allied with footwork, bought him space, and Ruaridh Jackson missed penalties as the conditions influenced the game, a swirling wind unsettling the kickers and persistent rain compromising handling.
Wasps’ first attack ended with the ball on the floor when Nathan Hughes, who had one of his more understated afternoons before being taken off just past the hour mark, broke into the home 22, but failed to get the ball to Frank Halai outside him.
The wing did score the only try of the half in a move that summed up a difference between the sides – the ability of Wasps to create space off their own ball. As they broke from their own half, Thomas Young slipped the ball out of the back of his left hand in contact and the alert Dan Robson befuddled a retreating defence.
Two phases later, after a fortunate ricochet from Daly’s chip, Charles Piutau broke two tackles and his pass to Halai was precise, although his failure to repeat the move six minutes from the end after Christian Wade’s break when he held on to the ball too long, denied his side a bonus point.
Wasps had appeared to have made the game safe early in the second period when Jackson finally got to grips with the wind and kicked a penalty. Another Bath mistake was then turned to advantage when Daly’s kick along the left wing stayed infield and prompted Tom Homer into a mistake by diving, rather than staying on his feet, and allowed Halai to touch down.
Bath were enjoying more possession, but Wasps sat back and forced errors. When the prop Simon McIntyre scored his side’s third try 18 minutes from the end, a few home supporters left in disgust and missed their team’s best period. Young was sent to the sin-bin for dragging down a maul near his line and Bath made their numerical advantage count when Banahan’s chip to the line, with the defence lacking a sweeper, was claimed by Homer.
The full-back converted his own try and the crowd found its voice for the first time. Not for long. Bath messed up again, with the wing George Smith, as he had done all afternoon, bossing the breakdown. Jimmy Gopperth kicked the penalty on a day when Wasps squandered 12 points with the boot and Amanaki Mafi’s try with the last move of the match, while yielding a bonus point for Bath, held no compensation for a team that should be thinking about next season.
