Wasps steal it after Bristol waste their finest hour
BRISTOL made an out of sorts Wasps battle all the way to win a hard-fought friendly at Clifton RFC.
The competiveness of the dogged hosts augurs well for their return to the Premiership and it was not until the last minute before Wasps were able to secure victory.
Bristol had led 9-0 until 45th minute before the strength of the visitors’ bench made the crucial impact to score three unanswered tries.
Bristol forwards coach, Mark Bakewell provided an accurate assessment;“It was a really strong effort in the first 50 minutes but we didn’t manage to maintain it for the whole 80.”
“We switched off and they punished us, which you can’t afford to do at this level.
“We put tremendous pressure on them in the first half but we didn’t score enough points, which would have won us the game.”
Wasps’ boss, Dai Young, conceded his side were fortunate winners and said;“The only positive was that we found a way to win and it’s a dressing room full of disappointment.”
“They were more intense than us and we made far too many basic errors.We should have been well behind at the interval but the introduction of Ashley Johnson and Alex Rieder gave us a lot of energy.”
It was a measure of Wasps’ poor performance in the first half that they kept a number of their leading players on the field for longer than was probably intended.
Newly appointed skipper, Joe Launchbury, set the standard for them playing for more than 60 minutes at full throttle with Nathan Hughes and Johnson also lively in the loose.
Therefore it was Bristol, who will take more plusses from the match with Jon Fisher and Jordan Crane showing they will be useful recruits. Behind the scrum, Gavin Henson showed he is still of value with some huge punts whilst Jordan Williams was a creative runner at full back.
Wasps were hit by an avalanche of early penalties from referee,Wayne Barnes, which saw them conceded six in the first 12 minutes.
Two of these resulted in six points for Gavin Henson as Wasps struggled to come to terms with the ferocity of Bristol’s defence on a narrow pitch.
The visitors were pressurised into making elementary errors with Elliot Daly kicking poorly and Frank Halal looking clueless under the high ball but they managed a greater share of the play in the second quarter.
However after he had missed with a drop goal attempt, Henson extended Bristol’s advantage with a third penalty to give his side a 9-0 interval lead.
Unfortunately for the home side, they couldn’t maintain that dominance as Wasps gained control to score three tries.
First an up and under from Henson bounced awkwardly for Launchbury to seize possession and feed Guy Thompson, who sent Nathan Hughes on a 25 metre run to the line.
A Johnson burst followed by a Daly break created the second try for Josh Bassett before Thompson finished off a driving line-out to clinch victory.