Bath run hot as Glos play like a shower
WHILE Bath saved their best display for the penultimate round of the regular season, Gloucester produced one of their worst – to usher Newcastle into the play-offs.
Neutrals may applaud Newcastle’s remarkable rise to play-off contention, but this sloppy Gloucester performance will have rankled with the Kingsholm crowd.
By leaking six tries to a committed, focused, and infinitely more accurate Bath side, Gloucester did not sign off the season in the way they would have wanted in their last home game of the campaign.
There was something demob happy about Gloucester, with European Cup rugby assured next season irrespective of the result here.
However, this effort, with ‘miracle passes’ or just plain inaccurate ones being slung about with abandon, will not cut it in Europe, whether it’s a fortnight from now against Cardiff Blues in the Challenge Cup final in Bilbao, or in the real deal next October.
It was meat and drink to Bath, who, having raced to a 21-3 lead with 25 minutes played, were never going to look the gift-horse in the mouth and let it slip.
With openside Francois Louw and wing Aled Brew leading Bath’s bruising offensive defence, and flyhalf Rhys Priestland giving the visitors the controlling hand tactically, they made inroads at will.
Bath signalled their intent from the outset, with Tom Dunn getting them off to a dream start by scoring the opening try with just over a minute played. The hooker was the beneficiary of a touchline burst by Matt Banahan, bustling over from the giant winger’s inside pass, and with Priestland converting, it was 7-0.
Gloucester hit back immediately, but with Lewis Ludlow’s touchdown ruled out for rolling over the line illegally after being tackled, they were on the receiving end when Priestland’s pass saw Louw slice past Ben Morgan. When the Bath No.10 got up to take Louw’s return pass he was in the clear, and he then added the extras to make it 14-0.
A Billy Twelvetrees penalty at least got Gloucester off the mark, but their catalogue of errors began in earnest when a James Hanson loose pass was scooped off the ground by Charlie Ewels, who promptly sent Brew sprinting in.
Gloucester struck back when Ed Slater banged over from short range, but Bath had all the thunder and the lightning – typified when Tom Homer scored a brilliant 60m solo try in which he zipped past four Gloucester defenders for the bonus point.
A second Twelvetrees penalty on the stroke of half-time trimmed the arrears to 26-13, and despite a Priestland penalty making it 29-13 early in the second half, Gloucester momentarily had a bit of wind in their sails.
When full-back Jason Woodward scored from a sharp Ben Vellacott pass set up by Morgan’s break into the 22, and Twelvetrees converted from touch, at 29-20 they looked like they were back in the race.
It was an illusion because four minutes later Cooper Vuna blasted his way to the line for Bath’s fifth try.
With Gloucester going headless chicken as they chased the game James Wilson scored a sixth try five minutes from time when Twelvetrees floated a perfect pass into his path.
CLOSE-UP
BILLY BURNS Gloucester fly-half V RHYS PRIESTLAND Bath fly-half
This was a Priestland masterclass. The Welsh fly-half bossed the game by swooping to punish Gloucester errors at every opportunity, moving the ball to their point of weakness. He also kicked five from six. Burns the younger was not helped by his forwards coming second in the close quarter combat, but he was too loose – like the rest of his team.
