Bath blow huge lead in marathon contest
A crazy, tense, dramatic contest at Sixways as the gremlins returned to Bath Rugby. They were cruising against Worcester at half-time but conspired to blow a 19-3 lead, ended this 99-minute match with 11 men and squandered an excellent chance to properly get themselves into the Premiership play-off mix. With replacement hooker Ross Batty sent off for a neck roll on Sam Lewis which saw the flanker land on his head in the 63rd minute, the visitors needed to play keep ball in the final quarter but couldn’t. It was all Worcester by that point as their opponents shed penalties and, with Bath leading 19-14 as the clock ticked through 80, it all came down to an excruciating scrumfest 5m from the tryline, which saw Bath’s numbers diminishing with every play. First Max Lahiff was sin-binned for killing the ball. A couple of penalties and reset scrums later and Ian Tempest sent Lucas Noguera, who had replaced Jacques van Rooyen, to the sidelines when he went to ground. Aled Brew joined them when he smashed Ryan Mills for what he thought had been a match-winning, ball-dislodging tackle. Tempest immediately gave him a yellow card for being offside. By now, Bath had Jamie Roberts packing down on one flank, a pack of seven, a backline of four and their starting front row were bizarrely all back on the field. They somehow managed to prevent the Warriors forcing a scrum penalty try but were hugely outnumbered out wide and a long pass for Mills in the 98th minute found Bryce Heem for the try to level the scores. Duncan Weir had the nerve to kick the winning conversion. Tempest appeared to get most of the late penalty decisions right but there are questions over some of the time-keeping. According to the running clock Lahiff had been binned in the 84th minute and the final try was scored in the 98th. Surely he should have been allowed to return to the field? According to the Bath coaches, they had repeatedly asked the officials but been told there was still time on the sin-bin, due to all the late stoppages in play. But even if he had re-emerged Bath still would have had only 12 against 15. And in truth, the seeds of defeat were sown much earlier. Bath’s discipline was woeful after the break, as penalties and freekicks conceded territory. Holes started to appear out wide, balls were dropped, passes imprecise and once Worcester – who had been terrible in the first half – picked their game up, they looked dangerous. The likes of Heem, Francois Venter and Ben Te’o started making yards. So did captain GJ van Velze and Marco Mama off the bench. It was a far cry from the opening 40, which Bath dominated without doing anything spectacular. Zach Mercer was busy early on and the pack won penalties which allowed Freddie Burns to chalk up a 9-0 lead. Weir struck back before the visitors thought they had scored a cracker of a try. A long miss-pass from Jamie Roberts – in good form again – found James Wilson down the left. He pulled off an attractive one-two with Cooper Vuna before diving towards the line under pressure from Francois Hougaard. It looked like the ball had grazed the tryline but after the TMO Stuart Terheege had a look, the ball was deemed held up. No matter, Roberts barged his way to the line from the resulting scrum and Zach Mercer burrowed over from close range before Burns added the extras. Another penalty from Burns and Bath were sitting pretty at the break. But it was the same old story in the second half – inaccurate and edgy once Warriors started to click – Bath were a different side. They lacked clarity of thought and direction and the memories of the confidence-boosting wins against Wasps and Leicester Tigers were fading away. Fighting for their lives, Warriors came in waves and Bath struggled to tread water. It was a fine effort to hold out with the numerical disadvantage for as long as they did. In the end, the defeat was inevitable and the length of time the killer blow took to arrive made it all the more painful for travelling fans.