For a long time it looked as if this was going to be a sorry exit for Bath, former winners of the Heineken Cup and standard-bearers of the new way in England, the bright, sharp, inventive game that is causing something of a stir across the continent. This English enterprise was the surprise of the Six Nations and promises to light up this World Cup year – and it is certainly very different from the old English way.
But it was not going to work against Leinster – set-piece heavy and breakdown savvy Leinster, who looked to have built their campaign very much on the values of old England. As Bath’s head of invention, George Ford, said: “Irish teams are very good at the breakdown, and building pressure there … we weren’t good enough.”
His father and coach, Mike, had already begun to sift through his team’s defeat: “We wanted to play quick – have tempo. They picked us off.” The Fords seemed to be imparting no positive spin to that impression of a gloomy time in sunny Dublin.
And yet it was all decided by the finest of margins. Having yielded under that Leinster pressure six kickable penalties, each one landed by Ian Madigan, Bath ended the tie pressing for the score that would have put them through. There was a blast 10 seconds from the end on the whistle of Jerome Garcès, whom both coaches complimented for his overall performance, and Ford Sr was convinced it was “a dead-set penalty for us”. Matt O’Connor, the coach of Leinster, not surprisingly saw it a little differently but conceded the closing minutes were “stressful”.
Bath, in short, were slow to mount a challenge but raised a stirring recovery that very nearly carried them through to the last four. “The first half. That’s where we lost the game … no control of the ball,” Mike Ford said. They also had no full-back for 10 minutes. Anthony Watson took out Rob Kearney under a restart and Bath lost their most potent runner and conceded six points while he was in the bin.
They had another elusive attacker in Ford Jr, who added real sparkle to the game even as his team were yielding five of their penalties in that generally miserable opening 40 minutes. Horacio Agulla and Rob Louw (impressive in the back row throughout) made ground but it was Ford who spotted the gap and who targeted forwards not light enough on their feet to close it. Ford sold a dummy and glided through for the try.
He did the same thing in the second half, cutting through and slipping a pass to Stuart Hooper, who was alert enough to keep up with his fly-half. If Ford had been as successful with his place-kicking – he was wide and short with his first penalty and saw his first conversion bounce off the post – as Madigan, Bath would have been in the lead.
As it was, Madigan kicked his sixth and last penalty and Leinster had a six-point lead to defend. Matt Banahan, who otherwise had a particularly forthright game, particularly as a tackler, dropped a pass that might have led to something. As did Agulla. There was still the threat of Watson, who impressed O’Connor – “Yeah, he cut us open …” – but the Bath attackers could not quite manoeuvre themselves into the perfect spot from which to seal their comeback. Ford, for example, could not quite create a drop-goal opportunity: “It didn’t materialise in the end.”
So, Bath are out, but in a grand manner. “I’m proud of the boys,” Mike Ford said. “This reinforces our belief in our principles. In times ahead, we’ll look back at this game as a turning point.”
Leinster go through, more stressed than they would like and possibly without the services of their wing, Fergus McFadden, who knocked himself out against the shoulder of Kyle Eastmond. They know their slightly stolid approach will not take them all the way. “The dynamics are going to change,” O’Connor said. “We don’t want to be in a position, away from home, where we’re trying to hold on at the end. The lads showed real character in the closing minutes, but we have to improve on today.”
Leinster Kearney; McFadden (Kirchner, 40), Te’o, Madigan, Fitzgerald; Gopperth, Boss (Reddan, 57); Healy (McGrath, 58), Cronin (Strauss, 65), Ross (Moore, 50), Toner, McCarthy (Denton, 71), Murphy, O’Brien, Heaslip (capt).
Pens Madigan 6.
Bath Watson; Agulla (Homer, 65), Joseph, Eastmond (Burgess, 60), Banahan; Ford, Young (Stringer, 65); James (Auterac, 52), Webber (Batty, 49), Palma-Newport (Lahiff, 57), Hooper (capt), Attwood (Garvey, 62), Fearns (Fa’osiliva, 57), Louw, Houston.
Tries Ford, Hooper. Con Ford. Pen Ford.
Attendance 40,000. Referee J Garcès (Fr).
