Wasps director of rugby Dai Young took heart from the fact his side were still able to claim victory against Sale despite producing what he felt was their worst performance in weeks.
Wasps made it eight competitive wins out of eight at Adams Park this season with a 25-18 victory over the Sharks but they were made to work hard by the Aviva Premiership's bottom side, who outscored their hosts two tries to one.
Young admitted his side could have been in trouble if they had played the same way against one of the division's leading teams and also conceded there was plenty to improve on, but he was still able to take some positives from the performance.
"We were below par and that's the worst we've played in the last four-to-six weeks. We found a way to win but there is still a lot of improvement to find. If we had played one of the top four in the Premiership today we would have come unstuck," he said.
"However, it's a measure of how far we've come as last season we would have been incapable of playing poorly and still winning."
Young also singled out Billy Vunipola for special praise following an impressive display from the Wasps number eight and backed the 20-year-old for international honours with England.
"Billy was outstanding for us, he's been in that vein all season. It's hard to believe he's only 20 and I believe he's ready for an England
call up as he won't let anyone down," said Young.
Sale boss John Mitchell was also able to take some plusses from the game despite seeing his side suffer a 10th defeat in 11 Premiership matches this season.
Sale suffered a record Heineken Cup defeat in losing 62-0 at Toulon last weekend but produced a much-improved performance today to secure a potentially valuable bonus point.
"The bonus point has pushed us closer to London Irish just above us. They are just in front of us and not a long way off so we have our destiny and we have to deal with what's in front of us." said Mitchell.
However, Mitchell was not totally happy with aspects of Sale's performance.
"We left nine points out there with missed kicks, there was a soft breach in our defence for their try and their kicking game was better
than ours with our 9-10 and 15 letting us down there as their execution wasn't good enough," said Mitchell.
Asked about the omission of Danny Cipriani from the Sale line-up, Mitchell said: "He has to improve his defence. Last week against Toulon he defended for 35 minutes and then chose not to do so.
"He was not the only player to receive bad news so if he improves his defence he will come back into contention."
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