Bath have almost forgotten what it takes to topple Northampton and, close though their fourth league defeat in five matches this season was, it also reflected the difference conditions make when idealism takes on pragmatism. The Saints looked like title contenders throughout, the home side only for a few minutes in the second half, and they go into the Christmas period adrift in the bottom half of the table.
Northampton wore their change strip of grey shirts and light blue shorts, more like pyjamas than kit, fittingly given the sleep-inducing nature of the start. When the PA announcer bellowed “Come on you Bath” at the end of the first quarter, it acted as a wake-up call to the crowd whose silence suggested they had nodded off.
Northampton, playing against the wind in the first half, showed their resourcefulness by running down the clock from the go and led 3-0 at the interval. One sequence of scrums took three minutes and at one stage the penalty count was 6-0 in Northampton’s favour, Saints against sinners. Seldom have Bath looked so bereft of ideas and toothless on home turf, squeezed in the set-pieces and on the floor so tightly that even the rudiments of the game, not least passing, deserted them.
Bath had not won their last eight Premiership matches with Northampton, but should have fancied ending the run with their opponents missing five England forwards. The home side had their absentees and the late withdrawal of Dave Attwood left them with an inexperienced second row, which seemed to contribute to their problems up front. When a scrum went up, Bath were deemed to have been the culprits whichever front row popped out first.
The scrum cost them the only score of the opening half when Nick Auterac was ruled to have driven across the Northampton hooker, Mike Haywood, and forced upwards and out. The crowd, fully conscious by now, roared its disapproval as JJ Hanrahan helped himself to three points, but Saints had been immeasurably superior, armed with a plan and executing it to the letter.
Saints camouflaged their losses by sticking to trusted patterns, It was no-frills rugby, hard and direct and low on errors. Bath were not allowed to settle, apart from one period after the interval when they put a sequence of moves together for the first time. Until then, they had shown the tentativeness of someone on a first date and even George Ford struggled to pull off what normally came naturally to him.
Ford was strangely sloppy. He sent an early routine pass forward, then found touch when looking to free Matt Banahan and, six minutes into the second period, just after he had levelled the scores with a penalty, he dithered in his own 22, not wanting to kick into the wind. That gave Northampton possession in front of the halfway line; by the time he had lined up Jonathan Joseph – making his first appearance since the World Cup – Luther Burrell knew a free meal was coming his way and he only had to catch the ball to score.
It looked to be the cue for a comfortable away victory, but Bath found a way back after winning penalties up front. Ford’s second was followed by their first sustained attacks of the match. Anthony Watson looked to have wriggled free only to be hauled down by Sam Dickinson, who imposed himself on the game in defence and on attack, putting the bricks in Northampton’s wall.
The relief was temporary and, when Bath worked space for Semesa Rokoduguni on the right wing, the England international suckered Ben Foden into thinking he was going to run through him only to check and step out of contact to leave the full-back on the floor and George North with too much to do.
It was a try out of keeping with the match but typical of what Bath are capable of. What they have yet to harvest is the consistency of performance that Northampton, Saracens and Leicester have shown over the years, the ability to win when not everything is in your favour. On their day, Bath are irrepressible but their overall level of performance is not yet consistently high enough.
Their try came with 17 minutes to go. Even though they were playing into the wind, the momentum was with them and they had not conceded a penalty since the opening period. Then three came along at once, all at the scrum. Hanrahan, even though Stephen Myler had come off the bench, was given the responsibility of kicking the second from 45 metres. He never looked like missing and Bath’s Northampton jinx goes on.
