Whipped by Wasps
King the king
By Cherrybomb
April 11 2002
Gloucester were stung by a Wasps team who showed strength and stamina to win a match equally as well as against Leicester 2 weeks ago. Many Gloucester mistakes didn't help there cause, as Wasp's cruised to a 44-9 victory.
Wasps seemed to have got their act together after a poor start to the season. In two weeks they have beaten first and second in the Premiership both by reasonably large margins. The return of Lawrence Dallaglio spurred them on in both matches, and they can only be thankful for the many mistakes that Gloucester made which Wasps punished.
The scores started with an Alex King penalty from some strong play from the Londoners, before Ludo put one over from 45 metres. Another penalty from king increased the score, before Josh Lewsey went over. The move started from an attacking line out, and some clever passing put Martyn Wood through who released Lewsey to make the score. Wasps still looked the stronger of the two sides, but three penalties from Ludovic Mercier kept the Cherry-And-whites in contention at 13-9. A few minutes later Paul Volley did something that obviously Robert Todd didn’t agree with, and a fight between the two soon resulted in a mass brawl before both men were shown what BBC Radio Gloucestershire said was yellow cards, but actually they had both been sent to the changing rooms for good. This angered Nigel Melville who was sat in the hospitality suite watching the game. The cards affected Gloucester more than Wasps, as their back line fell apart without the influential Todd. Just before half time Henry Paul was brought on for an unhappy Forrester, meaning both teams were playing with packs of seven. The second try came from an inspiring run from King, who ducked and dodged through two Gloucester players before setting up Abbot for the score. King again converted leaving the score 20-9 at half time.
In the second half Wasps still looked the better, charging for the Gloucester line. As they got to within a metre of the line referee Ashley Rowden put his arm up for the penalty, facing in Gloucester’s direction. Seconds later he switched his arm to the other direction, giving Wasps a penalty in front of the posts. King converted what was actually a conversion, as Rowden changed his mind and gave Wasps a try, apparently scored by hooker Trevor Leota.
King then added a drop goal before Fidler was sin binned for offside, which again was picky from the referee. Minutes later Wood went over, and just before the end a Wasps team looking for the five points put Mark Lock over, again converted by King.
"Both teams had agreed that the referee had no control of the game at all"
"I didn't think there was try by Leota either. He (the referee) gave a penalty and then changed his mind to make it a try, but from where we were standing you could see he didn't get over the line."