England’s Six Nations squad may be battered and bruised but Bath are too busy celebrating a notable achievement to fret about Stuart Lancaster’s in-tray. Never before in the tournament’s history has any club lost their first two games and still topped their pool, a statistical novelty made possible by Toulouse’s inelegant collapse up the final straight. There are now four English sides into the last eight of this increasingly unforgiving competition for the first time since 1997-98.
Bath’s reward will be an away trip to Leinster in April, an assignment they will regard as far from unwinnable given their efforts on recent travels. If they play anything like as well as they did in Toulouse, it will be a great contest although, as Glasgow showed here, it is still possible to frustrate their entertaining baton-whirlers. Gregor Townsend’s team also came within an inch or two of a famous win, the final whistle arriving just in time for a home side who spent the dying moments defending for their qualification lives.
Had Bath not had consistent dominance in the scrums and driving mauls, which yielded two crucial penalty tries, the visitors could easily have won, their positivity in the backs complemented by the huge efforts of Leone Nakarawa and Fraser Brown in the back row. Given Brown is normally a hooker and Glasgow were also missing their entire first-choice back row as well as several front-row stalwarts and the Lions full-back Stuart Hogg, there was considerable spirit in adversity.
Maybe there was a hint of subliminal Bath complacency too, their spectacular effort in Toulouse having uncorked a shower of praise from all quarters. If it did not help that Kyle Eastmond lasted only five minutes before being replaced – to the injured centre’s visible irritation – their head coach, Mike Ford, was swift to stress that winning rugby is not always a beautiful thing: “In the last game you saw the dash, this week you saw the grunt.”
There was certainly plenty of the latter displayed by Francois Louw and Matt Garvey, with Dave Attwood having an impact when he came on, but when Bath’s coaches study the tape they will be equally grateful for the fine try-saving tackle by the replacement prop Nick Auterac on a surging Mark Bennett just as the Scotland centre was threatening to write a very different script.
Even then it seemed Bath might be edged out when Sean Maitland was hauled down just short of the line and Finn Russell subsequently had the ball knocked from his grasp by desperate cover defenders. Had either man scored, it would have left Russell with an opportunity not merely to win the game with a final conversion from wide out but to put Glasgow through to the quarter-finals for the first time in their history.
Instead Bath are into the last eight for the first time in six years and only the fourth occasion in all since they won the tournament way back in 1998. It mattered not that they frequently huffed and puffed more than they would have preferred, finding Glasgow’s well-organised defence and excellent lineout hard to outwit despite their opponents’ front-row difficulties.
Ford Sr felt his side would have been awarded even more penalties in the Premiership and it did occasionally seem there may have been some guesswork involved in one of two of the officials’ decisions. There was nothing undeserved, however, about Glasgow’s first try, DTH van der Merwe breaking clear to put the impressive Alex Dunbar over after five minutes.
Glasgow still led 7-6 at half-time, when some strong words were surely exchanged in the home dressing room. The Scottish side, either way, continued in similarly defiant vein, scoring an outstanding long-distance team try finished by Richie Vernon, the No8 who has been flirting with an alternative career as a centre. It would have been scant justice had the score been ruled out because of Nakarawa’s slightly clumsy clear-out of Louw way back upfield; fortunately the TMO reached the same conclusion.
Could they hang on? It was always going to be tough, particularly when Bath’s first rumbling penalty try also resulted in a yellow card for Al Kellock for pulling down the maul. In many ways it reflected well on Glasgow that Bath did not score again until the 66th minute, their scrum again turning the screw close to their opponents’ line.
Ollie Devoto’s conversion made it 20-15 in a breathless final quarter which briefly saw George Ford disappear for a concussion check and be replaced by Sam Burgess before returning in place of Devoto as Bath craftily manipulated the regulations to suit the game situation. Burgess, once again, was largely on the periphery but there is still plenty of rugby to be played on any number of fronts between now and the end of the season.
France’s leading clubs may be hogging the home quarter-final draws but the English – and Leinster – are a stubborn bunch. Some kind of red rose interest in the final at Twickenham on 2 May is still entirely possible.
Bath Watson; Agulla, Joseph, Eastmond (Devoto, 6; Ford, 71), Banahan; Ford (Burgess, 65), Cook (Stringer, 63); James (Auterac, 49), Webber (Batty, 49), Wilson (Thomas, 49), Hooper (capt), Day (Attwood, 56), Garvey, Louw, Houston (Fearns, 63).
Tries Penalty try 2. Cons Ford, Devoto. Pens Ford 2.
Glasgow Maitland; Seymour, Bennett, Dunbar (Horne, 46), Van der Merwe (Lamont, 63); Russell, Pyrgos (Matarewa, 70); Reid (Yanuyanutawa, ht), MacArthur, Cusack (Welsh, h-t), Gray, Kellock (capt; Eddie, 63), Nakarawa, Brown, Vernon.
Tries Dunbar, Vernon. Con Russell. Pen Russell.
Sin-bin Kellock 52.
Referee J Lacey (Ire). Attendance 13,349.
