Bath Power Up In Second Half To Destroy Titans
Roth Action
By Glen Leat
October 11 2003
Five tries, a bonus point and a score of 47-3 to Bath. Great result but this was not a demonstration of "new" Bath at its best but instead a workman-like performance against a team just counting the days to relegation. If you ever wondered what a "game of two halves" is like, then this was it.
So what did John Connolly say to his Bath team at half time having spent 40 minutes watching his charges give Rotherham every opportunity to stay in the match and at least grab a losing bonus point (leave your answers on the messageboard)? After mostly dominating the game Bath could only muster four Olly Barkley penalties to one from the visitors. This is not to say there were no try scoring chances for Bath, there were, but ball handling errors, and over-eagerness in the pack and a referee who decided that advantage to Bath was to blow up for penalties in front of the posts instead of allowing the players to continue for a likely try.
Referee, Wayne Barnes, looked very serious throughout the match and this tended towards him making early decisions and stifling the flow of the game. He certainly played his part in evening things up in the first half. Rotherham were awarded a 50-yard penalty after 14 minutes and the kick fell just short of the Bath posts and Bath were (wrongly) adjudged to have knocked the ball forward. This gave the visitors some momentum and they peppered the Bath line with some dangerous attacks. The Bath defensive line this season is very strong and they kept the Titans at bay before whacking the ball up-field to clear.
On two occasions Bath were setting their platform in front of the Rotherham posts and the visitors deliberately strayed off-side to kill the game: penalties were fine but in this game Bath were searching for the magical four tries to gain that all important bonus point and the referee blowing in Bath's favour was not helpful. A yellow card was needed, but we had to wait for the second half before Craig Short and Charlie Harrison were binned, the latter for some uncharacterisc violence .
Lee Best celebrated his new contract with a keenness to show his coach that he should start at full-back ahead of Matt Perry, but this resulted in a couple of "headless chicken" moments when his quick tap-and-go moves put his team under pressure when a clearance kick to touch was all that was required. But these momentary lapses of reason should not deflect from the overall solid game he had: his positional play was very good and he made the full-back role look very easy.
Just before half-time it looked a dead certainty that Bath would score after they played some flowing rugby across the field in front of the Rotherham goal line but just when it looked as though Tim Brasher would strike for his first score he conspired with Zac Fea'unati to cock things up, at this stage it looked as though we would get the win but not the bonus point.
Then up steps Knuckles to the oche and does the business. A new Bath took to the field for the second 40 minutes and within a minute Andrew Higgins scored the first of his brace of tries. This score was set up by Michael Lipman dancing his way around colleagues and opposition alike before getting the ball off to Higgins for the score. A fantastic touchline conversation from Barkley gave us the seven points and suggested that he has found his kicking boots of last year (no doubt they were found lying in the dark recess of his cupboard under the stairs). Within five minutes Andy Beattie scored another, following the binning of Craig Short, and four minutes later Higgins grabbed his second.
Rob Fidler and Steve Borthwick controlled the set plays in the second half as they hadn't in the first and this seemed to galvanize their mates into a much more solid pack which demolished any likelihood the Titans had of staying in the game. Last season our team would have crumbled after such a disappointing first 40 minutes but these blokes are made of different stuff!
The Rec roared on the 64th minute as replacement prop, Matt Stevens, acted as temporary winger to score the bonus try: this followed a superb 25-yard rolling maul up the middle of the field which led to a penalty and the ball ending up in the hands of Stevens. To round things off nicely Olly Barkley scored a fifth and the crowd soon put the first half performance behind them to cheer their boys. Five out of five - brilliant!
Next week against Saracens will be a much tougher encounter and the coaching staff at Bath will not expect to see a repeat of this week's first half performance otherwise there could be a banana skin lying outside of the clubhouse and it might be wearing a fez!
Best part of the game? Easy, watching Coochie Coo streaking and evading the security men with some ease: loved the posing pouch Cooch!
Let's have a look at the latest league table.
Bath Scorers
|
Bath: Best, Higgins, Williams, Barkley, Brasher, Malone, Wood, Flatman,
Humphreys, Bell, Borthwick, Fidler, Beattie, Lipman, Fea'unati.
Referee: Wayne Barnes