Bath Under Perform In Ulster

By Glen Leat
October 9 2009

Bath walked away with nothing after being soundly beaten 26-12 by Ulster in the opening game of the Heineken Cup Pool matches at a very wet and windy Ravenhill. Some 1000 Bath fans braved horrendous weather conditions to watch their side offer a below par performance.

Bath scored three points with their first opportunity after 7 minutes after Ulster drove in to the side and pulled down the Bath maul. This score was important for Ryan Davis, returning to the Bath side after some difficulties at the very start of the season. Three minutes later Duncan Bell was penalised for boring in at a scrum after Bath dropped restart ball and the teams were soon level when Ian Humphreys kicked the goal.

Ulster scored the opening try of the game after 16 minutes, after making space on the outside through their fullback, and drove towards the Bath line. At the next ruck Ulster's Fijian, Nagusa, picked up and scored. A brilliant kick by Humphreys made the score 10-3. Moments later it looked as though Trimble was going to benefit from a Bath mistake close to their line but fortunately for the visitors, Matt Carraro was on hand to clear. Ryan Davis cut the arrears to 4 points with another good penalty after 23 minutes.

Bath made their way towards the Ulster line and secured a lineout some 15 metres from the goal line only for the referee to penalise Grewcock. From the penalty Bath gave the referee some backchat, costing another 10 metres and Humphreys' great kick took his team to within 10 metres of the Bath line. Fortunately for Bath, Ulster knocked-on as Kyriaco thought he was going to score. Poor play and discipline by the Blue, Black and White that could have been very costly.

Four minutes before half-time Ulster powered towards the Bath line and the visitors had to drag the maul down to stop its momentum: a penalty. Humphreys pushed the ball to the left hand side of the upright to leave the score at 10-6. Bath's restart was blocked but Joe Maddock picked up the ball and had a dart downfield. Several more drives took Bath to the Ulster twenty-two for a lineout. Bath stole the lineout and after several phases Claassens dropped the ball at the base of a ruck in front of the posts. Frustrating.

Ulster opened their second half account with a Humphreys drop goal after nearly four minutes of play, taking the score to 13-6. Ryan Davis scored his third penalty out of three attempts five minutes later. A few moments later Davis had two clearance kicks in succession charged down but the young man managed to keep his head. However all was in in vein when Ian Humphreys gave an athletic pass to set up Kyriacou who fed Faloon to dive under the posts. The fly-half converted to make the score 20-9. On the next attack Bath were awarded another penalty and Davis kept up his kicking prowess to make the score 20-12, momentarily keeping his team in the game.

Bath were then penalised for being offside at a lineout, a rare offensive to my knowledge, and Humphreys punished this basic error with another 3 points. 

Bath felt the full weight of Ulster's pressure in the closing 15 minutes. The home side bombarded Abendanon with high balls when they could see he was struggling and Beattie was red carded for dangerous play. Claassens was replaced by Bemand after looking tired as he tried to direct his players towards some form of order.

A late penalty from Humphreys took the score to 26-12 and Bath were well and truly beaten.

Well done to Ryan Davis for keeping his head when all around...etc. Four penalties from four attempts in appalling conditions - I take my hat off to you.

It sounded from the commentary that the Bath players were not up for this game. Well I have to say that after about 60 minutes I too was wholly fed up and wanted the game to end.

Finally, well played Andrew Sheridan on BBC Radio Bristol for commentating in very trying conditions and mentioning ERE twice. See if you can mention us every week Andrew.

I'm off for a drink (or three!).

 

 

Ulster: C Schifcofske, T Nagusa, D Cave, P Wallace, A Trimble, I Humphreys, I Boss, T Court, A Kyriacou, B Botha, E O'Donoghue, R Caldwell, S Ferris, W Faloon, R Diack. Replacements: N Brady, B Young, D Fitzpatrick, N McComb, C Henry, P Marshall, I Whitten, S Danielli

Bath: N Abendanon, J Maddock, M Carraro, S Hape, M Banahan, R Davis, M Claassens (c), D Flatman, L Mears, D Bell, S Hooper, D Grewcock, A Beattie, J Salvi, J Faamatuainu. Replacements: P Dixon, D Barnes, A Jarvis, C Cracknell, S Bemand, J Cuthbert, T Cheeseman

Referee: James Jones (Wales)