Wasps broke their Harlequins hoodoo with a 37-6 bonus point win which keeps them in the Premiership top four.

Two penalty tries were supplemented by scores from Elliot Daly and Tom Varndell as the black and golds recorded their first league victory against Quins in two years.

The all-important bonus point arrived with just two minutes left to the delight of the and keeps Wasps a point ahead of Exeter Chiefs in fourth place.

Director of rugby Dai Young said: “Once Quins get one try they tend to follow that with another one and another one, so we were very mindful of that.

“They’ve stung us before and we were determined not to let that happen here today. So it was something of a relief to hear that final whistle blow, but overall it was a great performance.”

Young also felt that his side could have won by a greater margin in a contest which they were in control of throughout after fly-half Andy Goode had kicked them into an early lead.

The Coventry native was on target with three penalty attempts as Wasps built up a 9-3 lead before the made a major breakthrough with 23 minutes on the clock.

Man of the match Nathan Hughes charged through the Quins’ defence and offloaded to Christian Wade who was stopped a few metres shy of the line. The ball was recycled quickly and fed out to the left where Varndell ran through a tackler to score the opening try of the match.

Goode converted and did so again five minutes later after Daly dotted down under the posts having collected Joe Simpson’s pass.

Nick Evans’ second penalty made the score 23-6 at the break, but that was a rare moment of joy for the visitors who were soon under pressure after the restart.

Quins were hit with a double whammy as captain George Robson was sent to the sin bin for bringing down a Wasps maul resulting in a penalty try being awarded with 48 minutes gone.

The hosts were made to wait for their bonus point; as with just two minutes remaining another surge towards the line was illegally halted by Jack Clifford culminating in a second penalty try which was converted by Alex Lozowski.

Young said: “We are confident going into every game, but we are also mindful that it’s a very tight league and it all depends on how you play on the day.

“I know it’s the old cliché that all the coaches will use, but it’s very true of this league that every team can beat each other. You have to be on the money every single game. If you look at the Premiership table, two wins and you’re in fourth, two losses and you could be in ninth or tenth.

“It’s fantastic to be sitting in fourth at the moment and top six remains our target this season, but we’re not home and dry yet, far from it.

“We’ve still got a lot of rugby to play and there are a number of points to pick up or lose, so it’s not a done deal. We’ve just got to play one game at a time and hopefully we can get there at the end of the day.”