Battling Wasps Performance comes up Short

A depleted Wasps side suffered their first defeat of the season, but there were many positives from this display, despite falliing just short

of an unlikely victory.

Sheffield opened the scoring with an unconverted try, but the Wasps came back with a try of their own.

Sheffield’s backs looked dangerous with ball in hand, but there was excellent defence from the Wasps, with some real crunching tackles.

Two more Sheffield tries followed as the Wasps ran out of defenders, but just before half time some excellent work by the Wasps, keeping the ball in hand through numerous phases near the line, resulted in a try, that Hayley Hodgson converted, to leave the Wasps just three points behind at half time. 12v15

The Wasps dominated the period after half time, but just could not find a way to breakdown the Sheffield defence. Finally a handling error gave Sheffield a scrum, and they were able to move the ball out of their twenty two into midfield, from where they set up a platform to add a fourth try, to pull clear.

Despite being reduced to ten players at one point, due to injuries and a yellow card for a deliberate knock on, the Wasps continued to compete until the final whistle.

Both teams dealt well with dreadful ground conditions.

The team clearly grew in confidence as the game went on and there was plenty for coach Chris Downham to build upon.