Premiership: Wasps 39-22 Gloucester - Lee Blackett gets third successive win in charge of Wasps

Wasps have got a try-scoring bonus point in six of their last seven games and are now a point off the Premiership play-off places

Wasps' resurgence under Lee Blackett continued as they beat Gloucester 39-22 to earn a third successive win.

In a highly entertaining first half, tries from Jack Willis, Josh Bassett and Jacob Umaga put Wasps 22-0 up.

Tom Marshall and Ollie Thorley got Gloucester close but Nizaam Carr got Wasps' fourth as both sides had players sent to the sin bin before half time.

Billy Twelvetrees and Lloyd Evans scored for Gloucester either side of a Malakai Fekitoa try after the break.

Wasps move up to fifth place in the league after Bath's heavy loss at leaders Exeter, having now won three times in four games since Dai Young stepped down as director of rugby last month.

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The home side looked to be cruising to victory having gone 22-0 up after 27 minutes - two of their tries coming when they were a man down after Fekitoa was sin-binned.

Willis did well to pick off an interception for the first, Bassett nipped in down the left from a close-range maul for the second while Umaga capped off a superb move after the returning Lima Sopoaga looped a lovely pass to Marcus Watson who blazed down the wing before releasing the fly-half.

Gloucester awoke when Wasps returned to their full compliment as Marshall ran in from 30 metres before he set up Thorley to sprint down the line for their second try.

They then had Marshall sin-binned for tackling a player without the ball and Carr was able to capitalise right on the half-time whistle to see Wasps go in to the break with what proved to be an insurmountable 19-point lead.

The relentless action continued after the break as Twelvetrees went in from three metres after Mark Atkinson's cute offload, but Fekitoa went over for Wasps soon after as Umaga found him with an accurate pass after a lot of pressure.

Louis Rees-Zammit was held up by Sopoaga as he tried to dot down for Gloucester 16 minutes after the break, but two minutes later the visitors did get a bonus-point fourth try as Evans dummied past a couple of defenders to go in from five metres to score on his first Premiership start.

A Jimmy Gopperth penalty with 17 minutes left ended any lingering Gloucester hopes, but a try-scoring bonus point was the least that they deserved after an enthralling match.

Wasps interim head coach Lee Blackett told BBC CWR:

"I'm really pleased with the result, but probably the best thing is I still think there's more in us.

"Everyone's finger nails have gone, it felt like that kind of game.

"I felt it was quite open from the outset, I think we took our opportunities well in the first half and it was great to get a couple of maul tries.

"We're really happy how this block's gone, but there's still plenty to improve on."

Gloucester head coach Johan Ackermann told BBC Radio Gloucestershire:

"We were obviously not good enough for the whole 80 minutes, especially not the start.

"It came from our errors, we were chasing the game so it is a bit of deja vu, but not a lack of effort, just too many mistakes.

"In certain areas we can see improvement, I felt our scrum has improved over the last few weeks, our lineout has definitely improved, there are still work ons from mistakes we make.

"We do score tries but we concede, a few weeks ago our defence was probably our strength and suddenly things change."

Wasps: Sopoaga; Watson, Fekitoa, Gopperth, Bassett; Umaga, Robson (capt); Harris, Cruse, Brookes, Matthews, Flament, Shields, Willis, Carr

Replacements: Oghre, West, Alo, Cardall, Morris, Porter, Spink, Odogwu

Gloucester: Marshall; Rees-Zammit, Twelvetrees, Atkinson, Thorley; Evans, Braley; Hohneck, Marais, Balmain, Craig, Mostert (capt), Polledri, Ludlow, Ackermann

Replacements: Walker, Seville, Knight, Slater, Hinkley, Chapman, Cipriani, Seabrook

Referee: Ian Tempest

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