DAI Young insists there is plenty more to come from his Wasps team after watching them claim their first victory of the new 2015/16 campaign at home to Bath.
The hosts got the better of last season’s runners-up at a rain-soaked Ricoh Arena on Sunday to move up to seventh in the Aviva Premiership table after two matches.
Young was pleased to see an improvement from last Friday’s opening defeat at Harlequins and also praised the impact of returning England internationals Joe Launchbury and James Haskell.
“Our performance was a big step up from last Friday and I’m really pleased with that,” said Young. “I thought we deserved to win that game and were the better team today to be honest.
“I think there’s lots more to come from this team, especially when it comes to learning to close games out.
“We were 16-3 up at one stage, so we’ve got to develop that killer instinct.
“I thought we controlled most aspects of the game and we should probably have won it a little bit more comfortably than we did in the end.
“I thought Joe Launchbury was outstanding today and James Haskell came back and won a lot of collisions around the breakdown for us.
“I was really pleased to have them back, but it was a real 23-man performance to beat a team as good as Bath.”
Jimmy Gopperth and George Ford exchanged first half penalties before the Wasps man successfully kicked another to hand the home side a narrow 6-3 lead at half-time.
Ten minutes after the break Wasps extended their lead thanks to a penalty try which was converted by Gopperth.
And moments later Gopperth scored his third penalty of the match to open up a 13-point lead with 14 minutes remaining.
Ford landed two successful kicks between the sticks late on to set up a tense finale but the Wasps defence held firm to secure a first win of the season.
Young added: “When you get into a situation where you are about two scores in front, you have to kick on and that seems to be our achilles heel at the moment.
“Yet again, we made it hard work for ourselves towards the end. We gave Bath a sniff and we were clinging on a little bit. So that’s an area we will certainly work on.
“It would have been bitterly disappointing if we hadn’t come away with the win.
“There’s still lots to work on, as that killer instinct is not quite there yet. It doesn’t get any easier with Leicester next week. As we all know, there are no easy games in the Premiership.”
