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Gloucester dealt a hammer blow as unfancied Wasps grab an away win
By PA
Gloucester were dealt a hammer blow in their quest to secure a Premiership play-off spot as unfancied Wasps came away with an unlikely 27-21 victory. Their forwards dominated the contest but Gloucester lacked flair and Wasps took advantage to take their limited chances to outscore their opponents by three tries to two.
Jacob Umaga, Gabriel Oghre and Charlie Atkinson scored their tries with Jimmy Gopperth converting all three and adding a penalty. Replacement Dan Robson also fired over a superb drop goal. Kyle Moyle scored a try for Gloucester and there was also a penalty try award with Adam Hastings kicking three penalties.
After a scrappy opening 14 minutes, Wasps conceded three penalties in quick succession and from the last, Hastings knocked over a simple kick to give his side the lead. Wasps suffered another setback when their flanker, Brad Shields, was forced to leave the field for an HIA having come off second best in a collision with Ruan Ackermann.
The game badly needed a spark of excitement and it looked to have got one when Wasps’ Alfie Barbeary burst away from a maul to run 45 metres before sending out a long pass to Paolo Odogwu, who forced way over. TMO replays were called for and they indicated that Barbeary had picked up the ball from an incorrect position so was deemed to be offside and the try ruled out.
The scrums became increasingly problematic as every engagement seemed to result in one front row or the other standing up and it came as no surprise when rival hookers, Jack Singleton and Oghre, were sin-binned for persistent infringement. At the next scrum, Wasps conceded a penalty, their tenth of the half, which Hastings kicked to leave Gloucester with a deserved 6-0 half-time lead.
Five minutes after the restart, the visitors scored the first try when Umaga charged down an attempted chip over from Santiago Carreras to run an unopposed 65 metres to score. Wasps stunned their opponents by soon scoring another when Oghre finished off a driving lineout but, straight from the kick-off, the hosts responded when Moyle collected his up and under to hold off the attentions of Umaga to score.
The conversion from Hastings rebounded back off a post but the outside half succeeded with a straightforward penalty to bring the scores level at the end of the third quarter. With 14 minutes remaining, Louis Rees-Zammit was sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on and Wasps immediately capitalised when Robson sent Atkinson over.
Gloucester need a response and it came in style when their pack provided an unstoppable line-out drive which earned a penalty try, with Wasps’ hooker Dan Frost yellow carded. The hosts looked favourites for the win but Robson fired over an excellent 45-metre drop goal before Gopperth added a penalty to secure victory.
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Latest Comments
Skelton may be brought back for the Wallabies so that would be the only reason that may hinder Wilson. Easily the form, most skilful and game IQ of any Oz 8. Valentini’s best and favourite position is 6, but lineouts may be an issue with Skelton, Valentini and Wilson. Will be interesting what Schmidt goes for but for me Wilson should be picked on form. Schmidt rewards work rate, skill and consistency. All that glitters every so often won’t be in contention. Greely is one of those players that has a knack of making the right decision. A coach is going to love him because he knows week in week out he’s going to get the job done. The second try Greely wasn’t the guy who made the initial break it was Flook, Greely was at the bottom of the ruck when Flook was off along the sideline. Greely got up and made the effort to catch up with play but also read the play nicely and hit the pass from Campbell at pace and then held the pass beautifully to Ryan.
Go to commentsSharks deserved to be far further back by the last quarter. Their tackling was awful, their set pieces were disappointing, their defensive organization was poor (especially on the Kok side of the D line), they kept making unnecessary errors, and they never looked like cracking the Clermont defense during those first 60m. Masuku kept them in touch, with some help from the Clermont generosity on penalty opportunities. Agree with the writer of this article. It was belligerence, and ability to raise their pressure game just enough, that turned the last quarter into a Bok-style shutout. Clermont have a reputation of not playing the full 80m, and there was a bit of that for sure. But, quite often when the intensity of a team drops off in the last quarter credit is due to the opponent for tiring them out. At 60m, with the Kok try, you thought that just maybe the game was on. At 70m, with the Mapimpi contribution, one felt that Clermont were fading, while facing a team that would maintain the pressure game through the final whistle. Good win in the end, but the Sharks are still playing way below their potential. And with their resources, and a coach that has had enough time to figure things out, they are running out of excuses.
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