WASPS showed plenty of desire and fight in the second period but new Aviva Premiership leaders Exeter proved to strong for Dai Young’s side as they ran out 27-41 winners at the Ricoh Arena.
Conceding four first half tries proved to be Wasps’ downfall on Saturday as they found themselves 27-6 down shortly before the break, with Jimmy Gopperth landing two penalties for the hosts.
Wasps did stage a stirring fightback to draw level with Frank Halai, Ashley Johnson, Lorenzo Cittadini all scoring well taken tries.
But Exter scored two further tries to pull away and claim a win that pushes them to the top of the table, while Wasps drop to sixth with six games gone.
“Sometimes you’ve just got to put your hands up and say that they were the better side. But in saying that we were very disappointed with our performance,” said Young.
“What this game tells you is that when people start talking about you and saying nice things, it can end up kicking you where it hurts.
“Saturday was a leveller and it brought us back down to earth. It shows that we are not the finished article and we were beaten by a very good team.
“It’s a long old season, we have time to put it right, but it was a very disappointed changing room in there as you can imagine. The lucky thing is that we have next week to put it right.”
