Sale 7 Bath 19

By Whaley Shark
February 13 2011

Friday night was what my mother, good Scot that she is, would call a ‘soft’ evening, which is code for damp and drizzly, so that suddenly you realise you are sopping wet but you’re not sure how it happened. The conditions had quite a lot to do with the outcome of the game, as did the relative inexperience of some of our players, particularly a young front row, up against some seasoned Bath warriors.

All in all it wasn’t really a pretty game. Bath had an edge up front and seemed to put us under a good deal of pressure, so it wasn’t surprising when a defensive cock-up after about half an hour saw Nick Abendanon accelerate through a gap and over for a try. With Charlie misfiring and Ollie (‘Wake me up when he’s kicked it’) Barkley slotting his kicks, we were 13-0 down and apparently out of the game.

While we did have a fair amount of possession, the quality wasn’t always great and we spent a lot of time a long way from the Bath try line; indeed, there were spells when we would run through three or four phases of possession and end up ten yards in the wrong direction. With one lovely exception, we never really worked out how to beat that suffocating Bath defence. The exception was, however, worth the wait as, straight after the Bath try, we won possession at the restart, drove into the Bath 22 and, thanks to a slick offload, gave Ben Cohen a 2-on-1 which just let him sneak in at the corner. After the conversion, we set up another good attacking position but went for the try with the clock running down and the opportunity was lost- I did wonder why we didn’t take the drop goal to go in 13-10 down?

The second half was attritional stuff, largely played in the middle third of the pitch. We seemed to get frustrated at our inability to beat the Bath defence and, as the conditions worsened, both sides resorted more and more to a kicking game. We conceded two more kickable penalties, while Charlie had one effort come back off the post, and the game ended 19-7 in mud and drizzle.

All in all, no complaints. Bath’s greater experience showed and, while it would have been nice to get a losing bonus, that looked unlikely once it became clear that Charlie’s sights were a bit off. I don’t think there was any lack of effort, more lack of experience and, worryingly, we may have lost another two or three from an already depleted squad. I’m relieved for Rhys Crane that he’s not broken anything, but I do hope Lee Imiolek’s not too badly damaged.  Strangely, for all our difficulties in the scrum, we seemed to have mauling down to a fine art, generally stopping Bath from making progress, and putting together several useful drives ourselves.

My Man of the Match- Sisa, for doing a decent job at the base of a creaking scrum, and for making yards, even with three defenders hanging off him.