Bath Go Top Of The League With Three Out Of Three!
Celebrations
By Glen Leat
September 26 2003
Although the game had the life strangled out of it by poor refereeing, the Bath camp will make the long journey home content with four away points and top spot. That's now played three, won three and two of them away matches: how many people would have put money on that situation three weeks ago?
Sale have made a poor start to the season by their recent high standards and a move to Stockport County's ground at Edgeley Park appears to have put a bit of a jinx on them as their football cousins' (who are currently languishing in 21st spot of the Second Division) form appears to have rubbed off on them! The return of Braam Van Straaten was a real threat to Bath taking the points as he has a long history as a goal kicking machine, but on this occasion the ex-Leeds Springbok was well out of form and missed several kicks that would have been bread and butter to him most days.
Referee David Rose was making his debut in the big time and he was determined to enjoy himself, unfortunately no one else did as this official made the cardinal sin of refereeing - he took centre stage. Rose was reluctant to let any passage of play finish naturally, instead preferring to award penalty after penalty. On several occasions Bath were giving the Sale line a good old pounding and Rose clearly felt the home defence needed a bit of a breather and so picked up on the sort of minor infringements more experienced referees are liable to let go.
Fortunately for Bath the referee was unable to prevent Brendan Daniel score the only try of the game after 13 minutes after Bath had taken a lineout close to the Sale try line. Chris Malone executed a Cattesque miss pass to Matt Perry who set up Daniel for his score. Throughout the rest of the first half Bath looked capable of destroying the home side but they were unable to build on this early score and at half time the score was a disappointing 6-8. Coach Connolly will have a lot of consider when he reviews the video of this game and will be looking for a greater killer instinct by the time his charges visit Wasps.
The second half was a dull affair and it would be interesting to see the "time the ball is in play" stats: probably about five minutes. Bath continued to dominate for the majority of the half, but because the score were so close Sale were always in the game and it would only take a couple of "interesting decisions" by the referee or a breakaway try and Bath would be heading for home without the Championship points.
The last 10 minutes was an edgy time for Bath fans but their team held out and a second away win by 9 -14 is something to be proud of.
Awful game great result, I'm sure we'll take a few more of those throughout the season if it means we are on the road back from obscurity. Wasps next week? A different kettle of fish!
Let's have a look at the latest league table.
Scorers
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Bath (8) 14 Northampton (6) 9 |
Bath: Perry, Best, Williams, Barkley, Daniel, Malone, Wood, Flatman, Humphreys, Bell, Fidler, Borthwick, Beattie, Lipman, Fea'unati. Replacements: Martens, Mears, Stevens, Kydd, Knox, Scaysbrook, Gray.
Sale Sharks: 15 Vaughan Going, 14 Mark Cueto, 13 James Hoyle, 12 Graeme Bond, 11 Steve Hanley, 10 Braam van Straaten, 9 Richard Wigglesworth, 8 Stuart Pinkerton, 7 Phil Davies, 6 Alex Sanderson (captain), 5 Dean Schofield, 4 Chris Jones, 3 Stuart Turner, 2 Matt Cairns, 1 Andrew Sheridan. Replacements: Andy Titterrell, Barry Stewart, Iain Fullarton, Christian Day, Magnus Lund, Chris Mayor, Nick Walshe.
Referee: David Rose