The England wing Anthony Watson was sent off for a dangerous challenge on his international team-mate Alex Goode as Bath slumped to their fifth home league defeat of the season in an ill-tempered encounter between last season’s Premiership finalists and the champions, Saracens, all but confirmed their place in the play-offs.
Watson’s dismissal, nine minutes into the second half, did not have a material bearing on the result: Bath were 18-3 down having been outplayed in the opening half by a side who have rediscovered their killer instinct with the return of their England grand slam players – but when the scrum-half, Chris Cook, was sent to the sin-bin three minutes later for tip-tackling the flanker Michael Rhodes, the remote prospect of a comeback faded along with Bath’s hopes of Champions Cup rugby next season.
Watson did not take his red card with equanimity. As Goode prepared to catch a high kick in his own 22, Watson ran to challenge for the ball. As he prepared to jump, he was body-checked by Chris Ashton, the England wing playing his first match since completing a 10-week ban for putting his hand near the eye area of an opponent.
Ashton, who went on to score two tries to secure a bonus point for the league leaders, had been spoken to twice by the referee, Greg Garner, once for blocking and a second time after a spat with the Bath second-row Dave Attwood. He prevented Watson leaping for the ball and the Bath wing, off-balance, stumbled into Goode at the point the full-back was beginning his descent. He crashed to the ground shoulder-first and, after Ashton had provoked a scuffle for shoving Watson hard in the back, the referee asked for the incident to be replayed on the red screen before reaching for his red card.
Watson told Ashton what he thought of him before walking off and had not calmed down by the time he reached the fourth official. He will have a disciplinary hearing and faces a minimum ban of three weeks but Bath will plead mitigating circumstances because Ashton put him off-balance.
“The letter of the law says it should have been a red card and, had it happened the other way, we would have been screaming,” said the Bath head coach, Mike Ford. “Anthony got underneath Goode but he had been going to catch the ball before Ashton checked his run and he could not get out of the way. We will fight his corner.”
Watson had started the match at full-back, switching to the wing after 11 minutes when Horacio Agulla limped off. Bath had only one outside back on the bench, Rhys Priestland, an outside-half, who became the last line of defence. Watson had inspired Bath’s one notable attack in the opening period but was largely required in defence as Saracens showed that the gap between the sides which was evident in last May’s final has grown.
“I feel sorry for Watson because what he did was not intentional,” said the Saracens director of rugby, Mark McCall. “It did not change the course of the game because we were 15 points ahead and we are playing really well in attack at the moment.”
Saracens had won 11 of their 12 previous Premiership encounters with Bath, who were on their best run of the season, two victories. There was an evident gulf between the teams from the start, Saracens attacking with alacrity and aplomb making decisions quickly and altering the direction of moves, while Bath relied on individual breaks and had little cohesion. They face a summer of rebuilding and Northampton’s Samoa scrum-half Kahn Fotuali’i is close to signing, the first of several expected in the coming weeks.
It took Saracens six minutes to score their first try. The scrum-half Cook’s clearance kick was weak and gave Ashton too much time to respond. The wing fed the alert Owen Farrell, a player at the peak of his powers, in contrast to his opposite number and England colleague, George Ford, who looks in need of a break from the game, and after Marcelo Bosch was held up on the line, Will Fraser picked up at the base of the ruck to score.
Two Farrell penalties followed before Goode, a constant threat all evening with his quick feet and eye for a gap, freed the replacement centre, Mike Ellery, with a bullet pass. Ford’s penalty with the last kick of the half gave Bath a scintilla of hope at the interval but the biggest deficit in the Premiership they had previously overcome to win was 14 points at Newcastle in 2009. After Fraser had been tackled into touch just before touching down after another Goode break, Bath had their best period of the match.
And then Watson was sent off in a match that simmered throughout. Ashton’s two tries sandwiched Leroy Houston’s consolation for Bath who slumped to their seventh home defeat of the campaign in all competitions. Claims of two incidents of gouging were dismissed by Ford and McCall as well as one of the alleged victims, Attwood, but it was another one in the eye for Bath while Saracens are looking ominously good with and without the ball.
Bath Watson; Rokoduguni, Joseph, Devoto, Agulla (Priestland, 19); Ford, Cook (Homer 74); Catt (Lahiff 52), Webber (Dunn, 59), Thomas (Wilson 54), Ewels, Attwood, Garvey (Houston, 34), Louw (capt; Mercer, 68), Mafi (Denton, 54).
Red card Watson 49. Sin-bin Cook 52.
Tries Houston. Cons Ford. Pens Ford.
Saracens Goode; Ashton, Bosch (Ellery, 68), Barritt (capt), Taylor; Farrell (Ransom 71), Wigglesworth (De Kock, 55); M Vunipola (Barrington, 55), Brits (Saunders, 71), Du Plessis (Lamositele 58), Itoje (Hargreaves, h-t), Kruis, Rhodes (Brown, 55), Fraser, B Vunipola.
Tries Fraser, Ellery, Ashton 2. Cons Farrell 2. Pens Farrell 2.
Referee G Garner. Attendance 13,518.
