Wasps send Bath crashing to record home defeat

WASPS simply refuse to be shaken off in their dogged pursuit of a top-four place; at the Recreation Ground this afternoon they scored five tries and turned in probably their best performance of the year to shatter Bath's 100 per cent home record and send them crashing to their biggest defeat at the Rec in Premiership history.

As Wasps coach Shaun Edwards said: "The dream is still alive."

Josh Lewsey crossed twice from full back while Danny Cipriani wowed the 10,600-capacity crowd with an individual try from 60m that had the national pressmen salivating.

The fly-half ended the day with 22 points in total, while James Haskell and Dan Leo also breached the Bath defence to earn the men in black a Premiership lifeline.

But 10-0 down after six minutes and 20-13 down at the interval hardly provided them with an ideal platform.

Cipriani dealt with the first deficit in one audacious flash.

An Andrew Higgins try plus a conversion and penalty from Olly Barkley had put the hosts on the front foot but, just a week after his chip and chase was charged down for an Italian try against England, Cipriani trusted his talent again and this time it came off spectacularly.

Demanding the ball from scrum half Mark McMillan, the fly half arced round the back of a ruck, chipped over the Bath line and then blitzed through to collect the ball on the bounce.

Last-man Abendanon got a hand to him, but Cipriani skipped and swayed and was gone.

That though, was just the beginning.

Lewsey made the first of three try-saving tackles to deny Shaune Berne, Cipriani and Barkley traded penalties and, after the Wasps man missed a chance to put his team in front with a long-range penalty after 37 minutes, Bath regained the lead on the stroke of half-time.

Nick Abendanon scored it, evading Haskell to finish off sustained Bath pressure, but if the home fans thought the 40th minute was a good time to score they were in for a rude shock.

Edwards and Wasps director of rugby Ian McGeechan spent just five minutes with the team during the interval - making organisational changes and telling the players to keep the ball in hand - before giving them a full ten minutes alone in the changing rooms to stew.

And the impact was startling.

Within two minutes of the restart surges from David Doherty, Mark van Gisbergen and the immense Joe Worsley had softened up Bath, and Haskell profited with a score under the posts.

Cipriani added the extras to make it 20-20, yet the storm was still just gathering.

Within minutes persistent pressure from Phil Vickery, Haskell and Worsley had lured Bath's defence to the left flank. No sooner had they arrived than Wasps switched quickly to the right, Doherty offloaded to Lewsey and the full-back made the most of the overlap to go over in the corner.

Cipriani missed the conversion but did slot a penalty just afterwards and six minutes after that Lewsey was in again to secure a try-bonus with a carbon copy of his first score.

The conversion was good and in just 16 minutes, Wasps had gone from 20-13 behind to 35-20 in front to leave Bath shell-shocked.

The home team did recover some pride with late tries from Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu and Daniel Browne, but in between Leo wrapped up the points when he reached out from under a ruck to score Wasps' fifth try of the day.

McGeechan said: "I thought the try just before half-time might be crucial, but we made a few adjustments in the second half and the 20 minutes we played after half-time was as well as we've played for a while."