Joe Simpson magic downs Exeter and keeps Wasps in play-off running

This has been a compelling Premiership season with all sorts of spectacular twists but no game has been won by a better individual try than the one which settled this fluctuating encounter in Coventry. If sixth-placed Wasps do end up making the play-offs – and this result has greatly improved their chances – then Joe Simpson’s mesmeric 76th-minute effort will rank high among the reasons why.

While Gareth Steenson’s last-gasp drop-goal to salvage a bonus point could yet prove just as significant, there was no disputing the quality of Simpson’s dramatic intervention, just when the Chiefs were threatening a potential grandstand finish of their own. One minute the scrum-half was fielding a kick from his opposite number Will Chudley 10 metres inside his own half, the next he had weaved his way around, past and through half a dozen players to win a match Wasps were threatening to squander.

It may prove equally timely as far as Simpson’s international prospects are concerned, the 26-year-old loitering behind Ben Youngs, Richard Wigglesworth and Danny Care in the queue with one cap to his name. Few nines anywhere, however, possess the startling pace that took him away from Henry Slade, past a stricken Thomas Waldrom and over the line despite the despairing attempt of Tom James to stop him.

Even as he dived for the whitewash he had the presence of mind to tighten his grip on the ball, having seen Billy Vunipola blow a similar opportunity for Saracens the previous day. “I’d watched the Saracens match and saw Billy bobble the ball over the line. In the back of my head I was thinking: ‘I cannot land short and then knock on.’ I would have looked like such a fool.” Happily for him, he clung on to complete a mazy dash which began life almost by accident. “I’m always looking for my support and to give it to someone bigger who’s got more energy than me but there was no one really viable to pass to. The gap opened up and I managed to pop my nose through.”

For all his match-winner’s modesty, the Wasps’ director of rugby, Dai Young, reckoned it was simply an extension of the form which by now should have received more international recognition. “If you look at the last couple of seasons it’s not the first try he’s scored similar to that,” said Young. “It was an excellent try but it wasn’t an isolated one. In broken play there’s not many better attacking threats from nine. Apart from his fantastic solo try I thought his game management and kicking game was excellent too.”

If England are looking for someone capable of raising the pace and making a real difference off the bench in the final quarter they could certainly do worse. In Nathan Hughes, their No8, Wasps also had the game’s most dynamic forward but it was impossible to argue with Rob Baxter, Exeter’s director of rugby, when he suggested the outcome ultimately boiled down to his own side’s failure to play as purposefully in the first 40 minutes as they did in the second.

For whatever reason they looked flat and distracted, conceding a soft try to the alert Christian Wade inside 75 seconds. Despite Chudley’s dart through a huge hole to level the scores, Wasps’ choke-tackling expertise and the harsh sin-binning of Waldrom for an alleged deliberate knock-on had helped the home side establish a 29-16 lead by the end of the third quarter Baxter’s half-time team talk, which was not among his more soothing addresses.

Henry Slade’s sweet left boot and a close-range score from Waldrom, his 14th of a prolific season, did at least repair some of the damage, only for Simpson’s magical moment and a missed penalty attempt from Gareth Steenson to leave the Chiefs staring at a blank return. To the replacement fly-half’s credit he duly landed the late drop-goal to secure a bonus point which will ensure European participation for the Chiefs next season but Baxter’s team, currently fifth, may have to win both their final games against Saracens and Sale to finish in the top four.

Given they have been Premiership regulars for only five years it says everything for their progress that missing out on the play-offs would hurt but Baxter, either way, felt they seriously underperformed in the first half. “We looked a passive, scared, edgy team in the first half and that frustrates me massively. I’d have thought we’d have hit the pitch all guns blazing which we didn’t quite do. But you have to go through these things as a side. I’ve told the guys that you can’t make steel without going through furnaces and taking a bit of a hammering.”

Wasps have been through plenty themselves this season but their relocation to the Midlands from High Wycombe continues to bear increasing fruit. On and off the field they are heading towards a future barely imaginable even a year ago.

Wasps Masi; Wade, Daly, Leiua, Tagicakibau; Goode, Simpson; Mullan (McIntyre, 59), Festuccia, Cittadini (Cooper-Woolley, 50-69), Gaskell (Cannon, 59), Myall, Johnson (Thompson, 50), Haskell (capt), Hughes.

Tries Wade, penalty, Simpson. Cons Goode 3. Pens Goode 4, Daly.

Exeter McGuigan; Whitten (James, 58), Nowell, Hill, Jess; Slade (Steenson, 78), Chudley (Lewis, 78); Moon, Yeandle (Cowan-Dickie, 54), Francis (Rimmer, 70), Mumm (capt), Lees (Welch, 54), Ewers, Horstmann (Johnson, 59), Waldrom.

Try Chudley, Waldrom. Cons Slade 2. Pens Slade 4. Drop goal Steenson.

Sin-bin Waldrom 36.

Referee M Carley (RFU). Att 16,712.