Wasps' Dai Young says 'buck starts and ends with me' after Bath defeat

Dai Young declared the "buck starts and ends with me" as he reflected on Wasps' 24-14 Gallagher Premiership defeat by Bath at the Ricoh Arena.

The Coventry-based club remain fourth in the table but their barren spell now extends to only one win in 12 matches as they fell to a man-of-the-match performance by Freddie Burns.

It was a poor way to reward the crowd of 31,626 - the club's second highest attendance at their new home - and Young admitted the supporters had a right to feel deflated.

"Obviously the buck starts and ends with me. It's my responsibility to turn this around," Young said.

"We've dug ourselves into a hole and it's only us who can dig us out of it. We need to turn it around sooner rather than later.

"I thought we let the supporters down - and I said that to the players. It was a fantastic occasion. We can't ask any more of the local supporters. I'm gutted that they didn't get a performance out of the team.

"We've just got to keep working at it. Obviously confidence is low. You see very good players making basic errors which you don't expect.

"We didn't give ourselves a chance because we gave the ball back to Bath every time we had it.

"The players coming off the bench got us back into the game but the match should never have been where it was. I don't think there was any area in which we were on top."

The defeat was compounded by a significant ankle injury sustained by prop Kieran Brooks, but Young revealed that club captain Joe Launchbury will be available to face Harlequins on Saturday having recovered from knee surgery.

Wasps' downfall was orchestrated by Burns, who conjured a brilliant solo try made possible by a dummy and turn of pace that swept him over the whitewash.

Thankfully for Bath, the former England fly-half successfully touched down to banish the memory of his embarrassing blunder against Toulouse in October when he had the ball dislodged from his hands as he celebrated before having scored.

"Freddie overcame that pretty quickly. He's resilient, I can assure you of that," Bath director of rugby Todd Blackadder said.

"We've been patchy and we haven't always made it easy for Freddie, but Freddie had his best game today. I was really pleased for him.

"And there was that little sense of relief to see him slide over. In a nutshell he's come back and has had a chance to redeem himself."

Burns spoke of his own satisfaction at avoiding another high-profile blunder.

"I was just happy I put the ball down to be honest. Obviously I get the glory of scoring but what a team effort. And what a relief," Burns said.

"We've been in a difficult place so to come here in front of 32,000 fans, dig in and get the result we did, means so much."