Bath on Sunday became the third English club to book a place at European finals weekend. The 2008 Challenge Cup champions just about edged passed Wasps on a day dominated by try-scoring forwards, setting up the possibility of three games against Northampton in the month before the end of the season.
Once the wing Will Helu had opened the scoring for Wasps, the day was ruled by the big boys, the former Wasps hooker Rob Webber scoring twice in 10 minutes from lineouts, while his front-row partner Anthony Perenise got another and Ashley Johnson rounded off the scoring for Wasps.
"We needed that," said their head coach, Mike Ford, whose side meet Northampton in the final at Cardiff next month and have a vital league game against the side one place above them in the Premiership on Friday which could decide whether they also meet again in the league play-offs.
"We need to start winning big games and this will give us belief going into Friday and then Quins the week after," said Ford, who admitted there were jitters when Kyle Eastmond went to the sin-bin four minutes from time for upending Charlie Hayter minutes after Johnson had pulled Wasps back to within six points. "Fair play to Wasps, they were never going to let up. They were at home in a European semi-final and put us under pressure."
However, the game revolved around the Webber tries – the first from an error by Wasps' Italy international hooker Carlo Festuccia, who missed a two-man lineout five metres from his own line, leaving Webber an open path. The second was a case of Webber showing how it should be done. He hit his target, Stuart Hooper, then got behind the rolling maul to steer the pack over the line. George Ford's conversion gave Bath an 11-point lead.
In most games that might have been definitive but Wasps marched downfield and Tom Lindsay, who had replaced Festuccia, hit Joe Launchbury and Johnson reached out to touch the line.
Bath, with an eye on their top-four place and the Saints game, had reshuffled the side that took a bonus point from Worcester last week, while Wasps made just the one enforced change, Phil Swainston starting instead of Jake Cooper-Woolley. The young tighthead took an early penalty off Bath's Samoa international Perenise, with Andy Goode landing the points.
The veteran fly-half got another 13 minutes later but in between the teams sorted each other out. Bath initially attempted to run everything, discovering more often than not that their skills were not up to their ambition. Wasps took a more pragmatic path, the pack rumbling 30 metres with Launchbury, said be on Saracens's shopping list, at its heart.
Ford got one kick and missed another but Bath stuttered until they turned down the Wasps route. The fly-half kicked to the corner, Matt Garvey rose at the back of the lineout and Perenise shunted over.
This was how it stayed until a minute before half-time. A 22 drop-out from Ford found Goode and the former England fly-half sent Elliot Daly down the right before the centre's inside ball to Helu created a clear path to the Bath posts. Goode's conversion gave Wasps a three-point lead at the interval but that was before Webber had his say. "Brilliant. I'm really pleased for Rob," said Ford. "He's a leader."
Unsurprisingly, Dai Young, Wasps' director of rugby and a former front-row man himself, saw it differently. "Today was pretty much a mirror image of our season," he said. "We worked our socks off to get our points – to turn pressure into points is not easy and we always seem to do it the hard way – then we give points away cheaply. Communication, accuracy or lack of focus, whatever you want to call it, we give too many cheap points away.
"That was bread and butter stuff. It was an overthrow rather than missed communication – a soft seven points. Big parts of that game, we were causing them lots of problems. We weren't a million miles from it but in the latter stages of any competition you've got to be accurate. Teams are good enough at scoring their own points without you gifting them some."
Wasps Masi; Helu, Daly, Bell (Hayter, 16), Varndell; Goode, Simpson; Mullan, Festuccia, Swainson (Vea, 67), Launchbury, Myall (Palmer, 58), Johnson, Haskell, Hughes (Jones, 67).
Tries Helu, Johnson. Con Goode. Pens Goode 2.
Bath Abendanon; Rokoduguni (Watson, 66), Joseph, Eastmond, Banahan (Henson, 71); Ford, Stringer (Young, 64); Catt (James, 48), Webber (Batty, 69), Perenise (Wilson, 48); Hooper, Day, Garvey (Fa'osiliva, 72), Mercer (Ferns, 48), Houston.
Tries Perenise, Webber 2. Cons Ford 3. Pens Ford. Sin-bin Eastmond 76.
Referee Romain Poite (Fra). Attendance 6,010.
