First half blitz enough to claim win
Bath Rugby’s search for an 80-minute performance continues after Stuart Hooper’s side failed to build on a 40-0 lead over Worcester Warriors at half-time.
It was a display of contrasting halves as Bath looked unplayable at stages in the first 40 minutes as they put an inexperienced visiting Worcester side to the sword at The Rec through a combination of power in the forwards and pace in the backs. Sevens convert Will Muir bagged a brace of tries to get off the mark in the Gallagher Premiership, with Tom Dunn, Zach Mercer, Ben Spencer and Max Clark all crossing the whitewash.
However disruptions caused by a series of injuries which saw fly-half Rhys Priestland and full-back Tom de Glanville both depart early with leg injuries, saw Worcester win the second half 22-7 with Tom Dunn touching down from the back of a powerful driving maul for his second of the match. But bottom of the
table Warriors bagged a four-try losing bonus point after crossing through Joe Batley and Ethan Waller while winger Perry Humphreys recorded a brace.
At the final whistle Bath director of rugby Stuart Hooper reflected: “We’ve got bit to do actually, but there’s some good learns to come from this game, right down to the way we talked about the second half at halftime, some of our decisions as coaches around who we put where, when we put them on, all those little bits, the little things that will make the difference.”
“We will have a good review of this one actually, it’s nice to do it with five points in the bag but it will be a good learning opportunity for us.”
After last week’s tries against the Falcons all coming from the forward pack, the scoring work-load was split against Warriors with Hooper pleased his side are developing multiple ways of being able to beat sides.
He said: “I believe that’s the blend that you need to be successful in the Premiership, we need to be able to go back to the drive, we need to be able to knock teams over from close range.
“But equally when we create space, we’ve got some dangerous runners and we want them in the game too, so it’s great to see Will [Muir] with a couple of tries and making some ground in the backs as well with Tom de Glanville.”
Both men praised by Hooper unfortunately departed with injuries which the Bath boss provided an initial update on.
He said: “Will [Muir] is an HIA so you know, we’ll look to get him looked after and back as soon as possible, but it shouldn’t be too long that one.
“It a couple of leg injuries for Rhys Priestland and Tom de Glanville, I am not sure what they are yet, but I’m going to catch up with the medics in a minute.
“I think their departure probably contributed to it [the switch in momentum], but I want us to do better than that. I want us to be able to deal with that, I want us to be able to ride those bumps out and yeah there’s things that we could do better with people out of position, but we should do better.”
Bath head to London Irish this weekend.