DIRECTOR of rugby Todd Blackadder saluted the defensive steel that saw Bath halt their own two-match losing run after the 25-9 victory over Wasps at the Ricoh Arena today.

Semesa Rokoduguni's late try put the finishing touch to a victory that saw Wasps' England number eight Nathan Hugheslimp off with a dead leg.

"We made tackle after tackle and we had to do that. We didn't build enough pressure with the ball but we managed that defensively," Blackadder said.

"We kept ourselves in the right and I thought it was good. There are a lot of things we can get better at though and this was a real arm wrestle. It was tight and could have gone either way."

Wasps director of rugby Dai Young placed a question mark over the fitness of Hughes, who departed in the 38th minute after initially sustaining the injury when taking a knee to the thigh from Anthony Watson during an aerial collision.

Although Hughes is expected to return soon rather than later, England know they cannot afford to lose another number eight for the autumn series against Argentina, Australia and Samoa after Billy Vunipola was ruled out until January because of knee surgery.

"Nathan had quite a bad dead leg. He tried to run it off but couldn't do that, so he had to go off. Hopefully Nathan will recover by next week, but we don't know," Young said.

"The physio has said it doesn't look any worse than a dead leg, but we haven't had a lot of luck on that front. We've said before it will only be one week and it ends up being longer.

"We said that with Danny Cipriani - one week to 10 days when it was three months, so what do I know?

"It's a bit early to tell, but he's certainly not looking at knee instability or anything like that, it's purely a dead leg. Nathan's a big player for us."

Wasps also saw prop Paul Doran Jones carried from the pitch on a stretcher with a knee injury described by Young as "nasty".

Last season's Premiership runners-up were well beaten as they slipped to a third successive defeat that spoiled their 150th birthday celebrations.

"We didn't win the battle of the gainline when we had the ball and subsequently we didn't look like scoring too may times, which was unusual for us, but that's been the story of the last couple of weeks," Young said.

"We had lots of possession, although not in the right area, and could not find the key to unlock their defence.

"It's just not clicking for us at this moment in time. There is no magic cure, you just have to work harder and get it right really."