MATCH REPORT: Bath Rugby 14 Harlequins 3
Bath Rugby reinforced their Aviva Premiership play-off credentials with an impressive victory over fellow top-four hopefuls Harlequins at The Rec.
This afternoon’s match kicked off a crucial period in Bath’s season, with back-to-back trips to last season’s Premiership finalists Northampton Saints and Leicester Tigers next up.
George Ford won the battle of the fly-halves in the first 40 minutes, landing three penalties to Nick Evans’ one, while Jonathan Joseph sealed the win with the game’s only try early in the second half.
The win consolidates Bath’s position in third in the table but they have now opened up a six-point gap to fourth-placed Quins.
Ford fired Bath ahead inside two minutes when hooker Rob Webber took a powerful crash ball into the Quins defence and the visitors were penalised at the breakdown.
Good work by the home fly-half yielded another penalty soon afterwards. Quins won a scrum against the head but when the ball came back to Nick Evans, the New Zealand ten slipped as he tried to clear and Ford charged down his kick.
Quins were caught offside as they tried to regain possession and Ford was presented with the simple task of splitting the posts from 20m.
Home full-back Anthony Watson then fumbled a high ball close to the Bath tryline but Quins were unable to make their good position count.
The visitors thundered forward following the scrum and, when Bath were penalised, scrum-half Karl Dickson opted to take the kick quickly. However, his side quickly infringed in the face of solid home defence during their next skirmish to the line.
Ford came in for plenty of rough treatment all afternoon and one such incident which saw him clattered off-the-ball by lock George Robson resulted in a penalty. The fly-half dusted himself down and gratefully converted to extend his side’s lead.
That was Ford’s last success from the tee, with his next five attempts all failing to land. Opposite number Evans, meanwhile, was able to get Quins on the board when he got his first sight of goal after half-an-hour.
Ford was unable to respond when Quins next infringed before Bath finished the half with another shot at the posts. Quins winger Charlie Walker saw yellow for a tip tackle on Watson, but Ford was unable to land the resulting penalty.
With Bath enjoying a man advantage, the only try of the game arrived early in the second half thanks to an excellent turn of pace by England centre Joseph.
Webber sent a lineout long to skipper Stuart Hooper and the ball travelled between Peter Stringer and Ford, who threw a miss pass to Joseph. The ex-London Irish man blitzed up the centre of the pitch before side-stepping full-back Mike Brown to dot down. Ford missed a tricky conversion from out wide.
A similar move almost yielded another promising moment for Bath soon afterwards but Argentina winger Horacio Agulla fumbled Kyle Eastmond’s pass as her darted at the Quins defence.
Ford continued to struggle from the tee, though, and a long-range penalty just inside the visitors’ half dropped short.
Quins then began to get a foothold in the game and enjoyed a good spell of territory. They thought they had a try when the pack rumbled over the whitewash following a lineout but referee Martin Fox deemed replacement flanker Tom Guest was held up.
Bath immediately reasserted their dominance from the resulting scrum, driving the visitors back over their own ball to win a penalty three minutes from time to all but clinch the win.
There was still time for Ford to try to add further gloss to the result. Another huge hit by the Bath pack at a scrum in Quins territory yielded the same result but Ford was unable to split the posts with the final kick of the match.
BATH RUGBY: Watson, Agulla, Joseph, Eastmond (Devoto 72), Banahan, Ford, Stringer (Roberts 61), James (Catt 61), Webber (Guinazu 74), Perenise (Orlandi 72), Hooper (c), Attwood (Day 61), Garvey, Louw, Fearns (Houston 69). Replacement not used: Heathcote.
Try: Joseph Penalties: Ford 3
HARLEQUINS: Brown, Walker, Hopper, Molenaar, Smith (Lindsay-Hague 69), Evans, Dickson, Marler (Lambert 67), Ward, Doran-Jones (Sinckler 64), Matthews (Kennedy 60), Robson, Wallace (Guest 60), Robshaw (c), Easter. Replacements not used: Crumpton, Stuart, Botica.
Penalty: Evans
Referee: Martin Fox
Attendance: 12,200
Article source: http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/former-england-rugby-ace-open-4189702
Bath Rugby reinforce play-off credentials with hard-fought win over Harlequins
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