Dai Young struggled to mask his disappointment after watching Wasps battle to a 23-23 draw against Newcastle at Kingsholm.

The fact that the visitors took anything from the game owed much to a man-of-the-match performance from Elliot Daly, who created two tries and scored one as the black and golds fell three places to seventh in the Premiership table.

The centre and Rob Miller scored first half tries to put Wasps up 13-11 at the break, but they were trailing for much of the second half until Guy Thompson crashed over.

Director of Rugby Young felt a five-day turnaround from their last match against Harlequins had not allowed his players to recover fully, and felt that contributed to a lacklustre display.

He said: “There were about six or seven handling errors during the first half and a lot of loose passes. We failed to really get going or build pressure on the Falcons, but take nothing away from them.

“I thought when they had opportunities, they really looked dangerous and they played really well. They thoroughly deserved the draw, if not a little bit more really. So we’re happy to come away with two points, but we’re certainly disappointed in the way we played.”

The hosts led after only five minutes as Wasps failure to deal with Mike Blair’s high kick led to Alex Tait collecting a long pass and running to the corner unchallenged. Tom Catterick missed the conversion but hit his mark four minutes later with a routine penalty.

Andy Goode reduced arrears with a penalty of his own after 20 minutes, but he couldn’t convert ten minutes later after Miller had drawn the visitors level with a try in the left corner.

Wasps were celebrating just a minute later as Daly went over in the same corner after he had started the attack with a scintillating burst from his own 22, again Goode was off-target with the conversion however.

The fly-half’s poor display was capped when he found touch on the full with a kick from outside his 22 which led to Newcastle garnering a penalty from which Catterick made no mistake.

Tries from Josh Furno and Juan Pablo Socin, one of which was superbly converted by Catterick, put Newcastle in the driving seat with a Goode penalty sandwiched inbetween.

But, with 12 minutes left on the clock, Dalyonce again made a great break and offloaded to Thompson who went in under the posts, allowing Goode to level the scores with the conversion.

Wasps held firm to see out the match and take two points, but it wasn’t good enough to see them hold on to a place in the top four ahead of Sunday’s clash against Gloucester at the Ricoh Arena.

Young said: “It’s funny, because people keep trying to get me to say we might finish in the top four, but I don’t think we’re even guaranteed to be in top six yet, let alone the top four.

“All we can do is worry about the next game and if we keep on winning then we will put ourselves in a better position, but one or two losses and you could be looking at eighth or ninth.

“Any team in this league can beat any other team. That’s why this Premiership is so interesting and so good to be part of. I’m confident we can bounce back next week and put in a better performance, which we will need to do if we are to get the win we want.”