Twelvetrees fires Gloucester win despite Wasps’ stirring fightback
By Daniel Schofield at the Coventry Building Society Arena
Wasps 33-35 Gloucester
Gloucester survived a furious comeback from Wasps, who were insipid for the first three quarters and inspired for the final 20 minutes.
Jack Clement’s try after 65 minutes secured Gloucester a try bonus point and seemingly the victory at 35-19. However, fired up by the introduction of the returning Alfie Barbeary and the veteran Jimmy Gopperth, Wasps picked themselves off the canvas.
Fly-half Jacob Umaga scored two converted tries in the closing stages, in which Gloucester’s Jonny May was yellow-carded. Wasps were scenting victory with possession inside the visitors’ half in injury time, but Umaga knocked on to leave the home team with a pair of bonus points. Gloucester have now lost just one of their last six league matches and are sneaking up on the rails in the Premiership.
Billy Twelvetrees looked like the player who burst on to the scene with England many moons ago in scoring a pair of tries any centre would be proud of. “Billy was world class,” George Skivington, the Gloucester director of rugby, said. “He led the young guys last week and his energy was outstanding off a six-day turnaround. I can’t speak highly enough of him.”
Adam Hastings, who finished with 15 points, guided everything from the armchair ride provided to him by the Gloucester pack. The Eastern European prop pairing of Val Rapava-ruskin and Kirill Gotovtsev are going to do damage to a fair few scrums this season.
Wasps’ results, meanwhile, are
almost as patchy as their attendances in the 32,000-seater Coventry Building Society. Freezing conditions do not help but neither does a run of one victory in seven games.
True Wasps have probably the longest injury list of any team in the Premiership and key players such as
Joe Launchbury, Jack Willis and Dan Robson. That was no excuse, however, for a defence was as flimsy as tissue paper with Gloucester slicing them apart at will. It is one thing to get beaten by the jet-heeled May and Ollie Thorley but it is quite another when it is 18-stone flanker
Freddie Clarke who is leaving defenders trailing in his wake.
“It was a disappointing night and a disappointing result,” Lee Blackett, the Wasps head coach, said. “I thought we were poor first half. We were very, very sloppy with the ball, Defensively we were too soft.”
The Wasps defensive issues began early on when they were first caught out by a Hastings chip over the top and then a May show and go from scrum half. Hastings added a conversion and a pair of penalties. Wasps hit back when Elliott Stooke set up Thomas Young from a lineout, who powered through Gloucester’s maul defence.
Yet the step forward was soon matched by one in the opposite direction. Gloucester scrum-half Ben Meehan fired a long pass to Mark Atkinson who in turn gave an inside ball to Twelvetrees who ran in untouched from 40 metres. A Hastings penalty took it to 23-5.
Gabriel Oghre squeezed over after a maul for Wasps, but Gloucester turned the screw and tries by Twelvetrees and Barbeary seemed to put them out of sight.