Wasps extend Premiership lead with Kurtley Beale-inspired win at Bath | Sport

Wasps and Bath have invested heavily in recent seasons but the home side look spent after another anaemic performance prompted their sixth defeat in nine Premiership matches. In a contest between two sides in the top four, only one looked like potential champions, and they played well within themselves.

The Australia full-back Kurtley Beale scored two of Wasps’ three tries and dictated play in the opening half after fielding a series of aimless kicks. The club expect him to decide in the next week whether to take up the option of another season but he again showed with his touch and timing that he is someone who should be playing Test rugby.

He was part of a multinational back division, backed by a South African, a New Zealander, a Samoan and three Englishmen. Bath’s policy of supplying possession through kicks that lacked chasers played to Wasps’ strengths but Beale did not run back the ball regardless, playing for position when there was no space to attack and using his eyes.

Bath spent only 2% of the opening half in the Wasps’ 22, but they had a try ruled out when David Denton was judged on review to have been tackled into touch by Christian Wade. Tom Homer scored a penalty in its final minute to take Bath into the interval 14-3 down having been comprehensively outplayed. They had only twice recovered from such a deficit at the break but never threatened to here.

The visitors’ three tries were models of precision: the first, scored by Christian Wade, his 12th of the Premiership campaign, followed a switch of direction by Danny Cipriani and a delayed pass by the fly-half to the No8 Alex Rider, whose stepping out of contact was one of their few notable features of the afternoon.

The second saw Beale angle his run after the hooker Tommy Taylor broke into the Bath 22 and timed his pass so that the defence was wrong-footed, and Beale’s second, 15 minutes from the end, resulted from Cipriani and Willie le Roux timing their passes to exploit a narrow defence. Jimmy Gopperth had a try ruled out for a forward pass and the leaders missed out on a bonus point but, with Exeter and Saracens behind them and a long gap to Bath in fourth place, it may be a season to finish first rather than second.

Bath badly missed the suspended Kahn Fotuali’i and Francois Louw as Wasps controlled the breakdown and won the kicking battle. Their only joy came up front, where Nathan Catt won four scrum penalties, and, while Anthony Watson had moments on the wing and Adam Hastings had flashes of illumination at fly-half, it was too easy for Wasps.