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Beale's brace seals vital win for Wasps, Quins edge Gloucester in thriller
By Gareth Morgan
Kurtley Beale grabbed two tries as Wasps restored their five-point lead at the top of the Premiership with an impressive 24-3 win over Bath at the Recreation Ground.
Wing Christian Wade crossed for the visitors' first five-pointer as they condemned Todd Blackadder's men to their heaviest home Premiership defeat for four years.
Tom Homer's first-half penalty was all the fourth-placed hosts could muster despite welcoming Luke Charteris, Taulupe Faletau and Anthony Watson back from international duty.
They were unable to cope with the intervention of Wasps' star Australian recruit Beale, who helped the visitors strengthen their grip at the top of the table.
In Saturday's other game, Harlequins mounted a remarkable late comeback to secure a thrilling 30-27 win over Gloucester at Kingsholm.
Having led 15-10 at the break courtesy of tries from scrumhalf Charlie Mulchrone and in-form Scottish wing Tim Visser, the London side were rocked early in the second half when David Halaifonua and Charlie Sharples both found the line for the hosts in the space of three minutes.
A Billy Burns penalty then took Gloucester out to a seemingly-unassailable 27-15 lead, but after home hooker Richard Hibbard was sin-binned, James Chisholm went in under the posts to give Mark Mapletoft's men hope.
Ross Chisholm's try duly locked the scores at 27-27 before James Lang's last-minute penalty sealed a ninth league win of the season for Harlequins and just their second at Kingsholm in the Premiership since 1999.
Match Shot | What a fight back from Harlequins!!
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Latest Comments
How about a SH type of Champions Cup? I'm not going to repeat the whole response here, but did write what I think would be good. Not only for NZ, but all of the SH. I would however love to hear your thoughts on such a competition
Go to commentsCan’t really complain about those scores. Individually, too many were off their best and went missing in big, match defining moments. Collectively, the team often looked muddled and lacked cool-headed, leadership especially in the final quarter of games. This was further compounded by a quality drop-off from the bench.
Calls for Borthwick’s dismissal have grown increasingly louder with each passing game as he has been shown to be tactically and selectively subpar. His position is now in the balance and I don’t believe he’ll be kept on unless England fix their defensive issues and beat at least one of Ireland, France or Scotland in the 6Ns, which on the latest showing looks increasingly unlikely.
Couple of returning players in Chessum and Mitchell coupled with a stronger bench, might give England fans a few reasons to remain optimistic.
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