FINAL SCORE
Bath Rugby picked up a valuable and dramatic 22-21 win away at Worcester Warriors.
In a contest where the two sides could barely be split, Worcester stalwart Chris Pennell had a chance to steal victory with the last play but his penalty from inside his own half drifted wide. The 55m effort appeared to have the legs but not the direction, meaning a heavily depleted Bath walked away with four valuable points.
Zach Mercer took all of 90 seconds to remind Bath what they have been missing with him injured for the best part of three months.
The number eight, on his return from a knee injury, powered over from close range inside the first couple of minutes to give the visitors the perfect start.
Despite the best efforts of Storm Dennis, which brought 40mph gusting winds and spells of heavy rain, both sides performed admirably in the tough conditions to produce a high quality game which see-sawed up and down.
In an all action opening 12 minutes, Duncan Weir and Rhys Priestland exchanged penalties before Worcester number eight Cornell du Perez levelled up the scores.
The back-rower came onto a clever delayed pass from scrumhalf Francois Hougaard who sniped from the back of the ruck to draw in guard defender Priestland and create the room needed for the backrower to crash over. Weir’s conversion levelled the scores at 10-10 and then another penalty in the 21st minute gave his side a narrow lead at the break, but only thanks to a poor error from Bath prop Beno Obano who knocked on reaching out for the line one-handed in the closing throws.
The second half was a repeat of the first with the visitors flying out the blocks to put the hosts under pressure. Just three minutes in Warriors lock Graham Kitchener was yellow carded for tackling Will Chudley after the scrum-half took a quick tap penalty when he wasn’t 10m back. It saved an almost certain try, but only momentarily with Francois Louw powering over under a pile of blue, black and white shirts moments later.
Bath continued to apply pressure and after twice being held up powered their way over the line for a third through lock Josh Mcnally.
A penalty from Weir and then spectacular late try from Worcester winger Nick David on his Premiership debut kept Bath on their toes with the score locked at 21-22 for the rest of the contest.