Rejuvenated Quins win again with three tries at the Rec
THE Premiership’s most porous defence leaked another 28 points as Bath’s long losing run at The Rec, stretching back to last September, continued.
Stuart Hooper’s side appeared to be suffering a serious hangover from their hapless 48-3 mauling at Bristol as Harlequins ran them ragged in the first half.
They were the architects of their own misfortune as they were punished for some loose defensive play and some needless penalties.
To their credit, Bath fronted up in the second half and discovered the determination to produce some of their best rugby – and deny Harlequins a bonus point – after being reduced to 13 men when Semesa Rokoduguni and Josh Matavesi were sinbinned in quick succession.
After Rhys Priestland and Marcus Smith exchanged penalties inside the first six minutes, Harlequins met little resistance as seven players were involved in a move which stretched over 70 metres for their opening try.
Aaron Morris collected a kick inside his own half and Stephan Lewies, Smith, Louis Lynagh and
Mike Brown were all involved before Danny Care sent Alex Dombrandt in.
Bath’s pack were outgunned as they failed to cope with the power of Joe
Marler, Dombrandt and Co while their internationalstudded back division failed to respond to the probing kicks and prompting of former Wales fly-half Priestland.
Smith landed his second penalty before a bad head gash ended his participation after only 23 minutes.
His replacement, James Lang, stretched the lead to 16-3 after Josh Matavesi infringed at the breakdown.
When Christian Judge was penalised for a no arms tackle, Lang put the penalty into the left-hand corner and Matt Symons plucked the ball off the top of the lineout, but three phases later Bath escaped as Dombrandt was denied a second try when the replay showed he had grounded the ball short of the line.
Quins, who were playing the advantage, opted for a five-metre scrum. Andre Esterhuizen was stopped on the burst but, with his forwards lining up, Care threw out a long pass to send Morris over in the corner.
It took Bath only three minutes of the second half to stop the rot with hooker Tom Dunn spinning off the back of a lineout drive to score after Priestland had put a penalty into the corner.
After Rokoduguni somewhat harshly saw yellow for what appeared a less than deliberate knock-on as he made a tackle, Quins responded with their third try when Care snatched the ball from the base of a ruck to expose the home defence once more.
Things got worse for
Bath when Matavesi was binned for a high tackle on Care as the scrum-half went over but they rallied to prevent Harlequins from adding to their score during the eight minutes when they had a two-man advantage.
Tom de Glanville put Bath within sight of a losing bonus point when he arced in for their second try and looked all set to strike again when he was denied by Tyrone Green’s excellent last-ditch tap tackle.