WASPS crashed to their heaviest home defeat of Dai Young's tenure as Bath ran roughshod over them to win 28-5 at Adams Park this afternoon.
The home team could have gone above Bath in the Aviva Premiership with a bonus point victory, but in truth the two sides looked miles apart by the end and Wasps will do very well to get this soul-sapping defeat out of their systems before they go to London Irish next weekend – when they'll be staring a fourth defeat in a row in the face.
Young's men always knew this would be a battle up front and for half an hour they just about matched their guests, but they couldn't maintain that intensity and as soon as Bath's enormous pack took over the game was effectively over.
Again Wasps weren't helped by a string of handling errors while between them Andy Goode and Joe Carlisle missed all four of their kicks at the posts, but in all likelihood that decided the margin of defeat rather than the defeat itself.
In mitigation, Wasps can point point to a host of match-winners on the treatment table – on this evidence they can't come back soon enough.
There wasn't much action on the scoreboard in the opening quarter, but on the field it was absorbing stuff as the two sides wrestled for control.
Bath's pack made an early statement of intent with a driving maul from an attacking line out which resulted in a penalty after three minutes, and they flexed their muscles again in a 14th minute scrum to win a second attempt at the posts.
George Ford landed the first and missed the second, before making it 6-0 with a long-range drop goal after 27 minutes.
By then Goode had pulled wide two penalties of his own after seven and eight minutes, and Wasps could have done with their fly half finding his range quickly as their pack were clearly in for a taxing afternoon.
They did have one moment to savour when Matt Mullan won a turnover on halfway and a pod of forwards speared ahead ten metres, while Elliot Daly was comfortably the most threatening runner on the pitch with two bursts to get the crowd going.
The second very nearly sent him exploding through a gap on the right wing, but that was the closest either side had come to breaking the line and by the end of the first period Bath's superiority up front was beginning to tell.
They had weathered a strong Wasps response in the middle period of the half and come back all guns blazing, marshalled well by Ford and shoving the black and golds all the way back to their own line.
Under intense pressure, the home side were pinged three times in quick succession as they strained to hold up the visitors by fair means and foul, and prop Phil Swainston was the unlucky man when the inevitable yellow-card came.
If holding out until the break was improbable with 15 men, it was impossible with 14 and just moments after Swainston's departure they were breached by a Bath try perfectly executed and finished by wing Semesa Rokoduguni.
Ford missed the conversion, but 11-0 at half time was foot on the throat time and Wasps needed a fast start after the interval to have any hope of wriggling free.
The introduction of James Haskell helped, and they were rewarded with a third penalty after 44 minutes.
But again Goode missed, and the return of Swainston allied to Joe Launchbury's introduction felt like a final throw of the dice even with 35 minutes remaining.
It wasn't happening though. Tom Varndell, Christian Wade, Andrea Masi and Hugo Southwell was too much quality to miss and without that threat in the backs and with their forwards in retreat, Wasps had nowhere to go.
Another Ford penalty made it 14-0 after 58 minutes and when Leroy Houston handed off Tom Palmer to send Rokoduguni over just past the hour, the game was over.
Ford's conversion pushed the score out to 21-0.
A Jonah Holmes try after 69 minutes at least avoided the humiliation of being nilled in front of their own fans, but Bath had the last say with Matt Garvey going over from close range three minutes from time.
By then, Ford's conversation was just salt spilled into a gaping wound.
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