Cokanasiga’s late score fails to hide woeful Bath’s flaws
‘We are letting our fans down with the way we are playing’
This was desperate stuff in every sense. With Bath and Sale starting the day in 10th and 12th place in the Gallagher Premiership, it was a game neither could afford to lose, which contributed to a wretched spectacle. In the end they avoided defeat, but a draw does not really help either team.
Bath, who are catapulted up to sixth in a ridiculously compact league, will be the more relieved after James Wilson converted Joe Cokanasiga’s 73rd-minute try. That came after a rare moment of quality by replacement Cooper Vuna, who sidestepped Denny Solomona, sped past Sam James and put in a perfect grubber for England’s new wing to touch down. It was just about the fair result, in part because neither team deserved to win, particularly after a scoreless first half.
Perhaps that underplays the resilience of Sale’s defensive effort in making 162 of 172 tackles. The back-row combination of Jono Ross and Ben Curry contributed 36 of that total without a single miss. Ross and Curry also dominated the breakdown battle against the much-vaunted duo of Francois Louw and Sam Underhill.
Yet that was also in large part due to Bath’s ponderousness. There are wheelless caravans less static than Bath’s attack, which was once a byword for dynamism and innovation.
Todd Blackadder, the director of rugby, made no excuses. “We are climbing the ladder, isn’t that great news?” he said. “That’s about the only highlight. We showed some resilience to come back to get the draw, but there are so many opportunities we are not executing.
“We are letting our supporters down with the way we are playing. We are letting ourselves down, more importantly. We are not playing the type of rugby we want.”
Next up for Bath: a doubleheader against European champions Leinster, which could be a bloodbath.
It is hard to understate the lethargy of their attack. Scrum-half Kahn Fotuali’i might as well have popped by the city’s Christmas market in the time it took him to organise his forwards around a ruck and then send a runner around the corner into a wall of Sale defence.
Bath dominated the first half with 71 per cent of possession and 79 per cent territory. Several times they engineered promising positions and, on each occasion, they left with nothing. That was partly due to stout Sale defending, but more often than not because of poor decisions and execution. Even England’s golden boy, Cokanasiga, fell prey to the overall malaise when he failed to gather cleanly Jackson Willison’s cross-field kick with the try-line begging.
Sale, too, were sloppy in the little possession they had, but they engineered the first half’s best chance. Solomona outstripped Cokanasiga to Rob du Preez’s excellent kick, but lost control of the ball in the process of diving over the line.
It did not help the spectacle that there was a power cut affecting referee Luke Pearce’s communication with his assistants.
The second half brought an improvement. Sale finally brought an end to the deadlock in the 49th minute. After a well-worked maul, Curry carried hard and No8 Jeanluc du Preez neatly sidestepped Underhill from close range. Vuna’s moment of magic brought the scores level, leading to a tense finale. Fittingly, the last action was when Solomona dropped a simple cross-field kick.
Sale are off the bottom, but no one below third place is safe from relegation, in spite of director of rugby Steve Diamond’s assessment. “We’ve got to be happy with a draw,” he said. “Someone is going to go down with 30 points – a bigname club. We have been in the Premiership for 25 years, so there’s no reason we won’t be here next season. I’m that confident.”