BATH FLAGGING
Cokanasiga injury adds to pain of narrow loss
Bath 10 Leinster 17
BY the time Mathieu Raynal blew his final whistle, Leinster’s supporters waved their flags in both relief and defiance.
Bath stewards confiscated 1,500 banners from the travelling fans outside the stadium — but they failed to dampen the Irish celebrations. Club officials quoted health and safety reasons, including fire risks, however it was Bath’s Euro campaign that went up in smoke.
Todd Blackadder’s side are now three games without a win in the Champions Cup and, to make matters worse, winger Joe Cokanasiga suffered a leg injury and faces a possible ban.
‘If we don’t win there next week it’s basically game over,’ said Blackadder of the return match against Leinster in Dublin next weekend. ‘We’ll go over full metal jacket.’
Bath were all square with the European champions at half-time but their fortunes faded.
Playing advantage off the back of a wayward lineout in the 49th minute, Bath fly-half James Wilson threw a Hail Mary pass which was intercepted by Jordan Larmour.
Most players on the pitch thought it was a free play, but the Leinster winger sprinted 45 metres to score the decisive try.
‘We got lucky,’ admitted Leinster coach Leo Cullen. ‘ The line- out went crooked, the referee called advantage over and, within the next two seconds, they throw a pass and suddenly we score at the other end of the field.
‘We talk all the time about communication with referees. It was a big moment and we did get a bit fortunate there.’
Blackadder agreed: ‘ I thought there were a few decisions out there which were a little bit wayward. What can you do? It was a real grey area about where the advantage was.’
Leinster were expected to run riot in the West Country. Loaded with Ireland internationals, they were primed to begin the demolition job at The Rec as Bath lay the foundations for their new stadium.
But it was the hosts who took an early lead, with Henry Thomas crashing over from short range, having turned over a Leinster scrum.
What Bath lacked in skill, they made up for in effort.
Basic handling errors have become symptomatic of Bath’s attack in recent weeks and yesterday they suffered the same old symptoms.
Flanker Francois Louw shackled the Irish attack with a hat-trick of turnovers in the first half, but Sean Cronin drew the scores level from a driving lineout.
Johnny Sexton and Wilson both missed kicks at goal and Larmour eventually snatched the lead with his controversial score.
‘We owed a performance like that to our fans,’ said Bath captain Charlie Ewels. ‘The result didn’t go our way but they can see we left everything that we had out there on the pitch. That is our bench-mark now and we have proved to ourselves that we have got a game plan that can beat Leinster. Now it is about going over there and executing it again but it will be about winning the one or two moments that we lost today.’
Cokanasiga carried hard to get his side back into the game, but he was unable to replicate his matchwinning impact from England’s autumn campaign.
The 18st winger was penalised for a high tackle on Luke McGrath, which could result in a citing, and eventually limped off with a leg injury. ‘Joe suffered a big knock but we’ll have to wait and see how serious it is,’ said Blackadder. ‘I think the referee got it right on the tackle because the player was ducking down. Joe’s a big man.’
Ross Byrne and Wilson exchanged penalties in the closing exchanges and, behind the posts, Leinster fans with smuggled-in flags turned the stands blue.