“Bye-bye Dallaglio,” the Gloucester crowd, straight from the Kingsholm Shed, sang at Adams Park yesterday. They may not yet have seen the last of one of their favourite hate figures, because the play-off situation in the Guinness Premiership is by no means decided, but Gloucester did themselves an enormous favour by beating London Wasps.

They returned to the top of the table, they boosted morale one hundred fold, they brought to an end a run of eight successive Premiership wins by Wasps and made them seem more mortal to all those other clubs contending for a top-four finish. They did it, moreover, on Wasps territory where they have not won since a Pilkington Cup match in 1990, the dear dead days of amateurism.

They deserved it. Over the past fortnight they have worked hard on the specifics of beating Wasps, on their contact work and the need to win the collisions. From the first moment of a muggy afternoon they hustled and harried Wasps who never, at any stage, secured the fluency on which their game flourishes; these are precisely the areas which have let Gloucester down in the games that count over the past two seasons so yesterday may have marked a turning point in their development.

It was not Lawrence Dallaglio who failed to stamp his presence on the game - the “tribute” from the visiting fans sprang from the possibility that this was his last home game before retirement - but errors abounded elsewhere. The confident combinations, in the back row and midfield, failed to work to such an extent that before the third quarter was over, both Wasps half backs, Danny Cipriani and Eoin Reddan, had been withdrawn.

Anyone looking at the match statistics would have found it difficult to comprehend how Wasps lost. They enjoyed a penalty-count advantage of 12-5 and dominated the lineout by a ratio of 2-1 but Gloucester gave them no time to make hay; they were 12 points up within ten minutes, a period which in many ways defined the whole game. Josh Lewsey, under pressure from Olly Morgan, his opposite number, dropped a high kick and James Simpson-Daniel scooped it up and was over unopposed.

When Mike Tindall finished a sustained period of attack with his side's second try, Wasps knew that they faced a difficult afternoon, made all the harder by the decision to field an off-colour Cipriani at all. This has been a wonderful breakthrough season for the young fly half but he had not trained for eight days because of a chest infection; he missed two long-range penalty attempts before chipping over from 18 metres, and Gloucester were happy to lure him into holes rather than watch him and Riki Flutey conjuring magic wider out.

But they had to defend for their lives in the ten minutes before the interval. Raphaël Ibañez forced his way over from a driven lineout and Rory Lawson produced a try-saving tackle on Fraser Waters. Dean Ryan selected five forwards on Gloucester's bench, knowing that the effort that would be required, and called on two of them at the start of the second half in time to see Simpson-Daniel turn alchemist.

Ryan Lamb might have been penalised for a high tackle on Cipriani but play was waved on and though Lamb's high cross-field kick was too shallow, Simpson-Daniel turned dross into gold by beating Tom Voyce to the catch, slipping a second defender and then sending a pass out of the back of his hand to Morgan on the overlap. Cipriani's departure gave Jeremy Staunton a rare appearance this season, the Irishman arriving in time to convert Ibañez's second try.

With five points the difference, Gloucester knew what was coming but had the composure to deal with it. Not only that, they denied Wasps even a losing bonus point when Lamb kicked his second penalty and who knows how much of a difference that will have made after next weekend?

Scorers: London Wasps: Tries: Ibanez 2 (27min, 59). Conversions: Cipriani, Staunton. Penalty goal: Cipriani (20). Gloucester: Tries: Simpson-Daniel (7), Tindall (10), Morgan (48). Conversions: Lamb 2. Penalty goals: Lamb 2 (23, 79).

Scoring sequence (London Wasps first): 0-5, 0-12, 3-12, 3-15, 10-15 (half-time), 10-22, 17-22, 17-25.

London Wasps: J Lewsey; P Sackey, F Waters, R Flutey, T Voyce; D Cipriani (rep: J Staunton, 52), E Reddan (rep: M McMillan, 52); T French, R Ibañez, T Payne (rep: M Holford, 58), S Shaw (rep: G Skivington, 71), T Palmer, J Worsley (rep: J Haskell, 56), T Rees, L Dallaglio.

Gloucester: O Morgan (rep: W Walker, 66); J Simpson-Daniel, M Tindall, A Allen, I Balshaw; R Lamb, R Lawson (rep: G Cooper, 66); N Wood (rep: A Dickinson, 41-68), A Titterrell (rep: O Azam, 49), C Nieto (sin bin 27-37), M Bortolami, A Brown (rep: W James, 53), A Strokosch (rep: Dickinson, 31-37), A Qera (rep: P Buxton, 63), L Narraway (rep: G Delve, 41).

Referee: W Barnes.

Attendance: 10,000.