Following Bath’s 48-15 victory over Harlequins at The Rec, here are our five takeaways from the Gallagher PREM Rugby fixture.
The Top Line
This was Bath’s 11th try bonus-point of the season, which pulls them level with Northampton at the attacking summit of the PREM Rugby table. 1000 points passed on the afternoon. 150 tries and counting. Bernard van der Linde’s late score added a further exclamation mark to a scoreline that could have been heavier still; Bath left two or three more on the field through a chalked-off Santi Carreras effort for a shoulder charge and a couple of knock-ons in promising positions. All of it delivered eight days after a 43-all Champions Cup quarter-final with Saints that should have left legs heavy and minds elsewhere.
None of that was visible at The Rec this afternoon. Bath played with the composure of a side that has stopped worrying about matches and started worrying about tournaments. To his credit, Johann van Graan picked his strongest XV rather than rest legs, and that selection read as a statement that Bath are aware that a home semi-final is the prize on offer with three rounds of the regular season to go. There’s little doubt this was a performance designed to secure it. Harlequins were not disgraced; they came energised, attacked well in the opening exchanges, played good rugby in phases, and had a try chalked off on a fifty-fifty TMO review that on another afternoon stands. The final scoreline reflected the circumstances they played under more than the quality of the side that took the field.
Bath’s Power and Pace
The statistical shorthand for this match is a tackle completion rate of 84 per cent from Harlequins with 28 missed tackles across the afternoon. That is what happens to a defensive system when it is asked to stop Alfie Barbeary, Max Ojomoh, Ollie Lawrence, Ted Hill, Guy Pepper, Charlie Ewels and Joe Cokanasiga one after another. Barbeary finished with 11 carries and every one of them came through the gainline rather than around it. Pepper 10. Carreras 10. The three highest carry counts on the field.
Cokanasiga’s aerial dominance reshaped the kicking game from minute one, and the converted Tom Carr-Smith try in the first quarter came directly from a restart the Bath wing won unchallenged. When van Francois Wyk, Dan Frost and Thomas du Toit came on together as human wrecking balls midway through the second half, the scrum became a weapon Quins had no answer to and Pepper’s try, which took Bath past 1000 points for the season, came off a monster scrum followed by a sequence of Bath carries that narrowed the defence until Lawrence had the simple pass to put the flanker in.
Van der Linde’s late try came off the same physical template: a Bath pack still carrying with intent in the 80th minute against a Quins side that had nothing left to give. What was striking was the absence of urgency in any of it. Bath scored twice off first phase in the first half, which is the signature of elite sides, and closed out through bench power across the second.
Carreras and Russell, Masters
Santi Carreras was the player of the match, and on an afternoon when Finn Russell played one another of his supreme games in a Bath shirt, but the Argentine outshone even him with a brace that told two stories. The first came from a 4th-minute intercept off a Jarrod Evans pass in Bath’s own half, 80 metres against the run of play with Harlequins attacking well.
The second came off a scrum strike play in the 29th, Carr-Smith to Ojomoh, Ojomoh’s offload to Russell, Russell’s sublime pass sending Carreras through a Quins line already broken by Lucas Friday being out of position. The dummy Carreras sold to finish the move was the best individual skill on display all afternoon.
Just shy of 200 metres run, 10 carries, a try assist for Bayliss after lovely midfield creation, and then a late switch from 15 to 10 when Russell came off, where Carreras made more metres than any Quins back in the final stretch. Russell ran the game for 50-odd minutes without ever needing to force tempo. The partnership between the two of them is becoming one of the most watchable in European rugby but there’s little doubt that Carreras either at 10 and at 15 is now one of the most complete footballers in the game.
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Harlequins, Injuries and Indiscipline
Harlequins lost Cadan Murley, Nick David and Jarrod Evans during this match. They came into it with 27 players already out. By the final quarter, Alex Dombrandt was standing at first receiver in the 12 channel. Watching a Test number eight at inside centre told you everything about the depletion Harlequins have carried through this season. What Quins had on the field for 80 minutes was a good front five, Dombrandt at the base of the scrum, and then improvisation behind.
The discipline problems that mounted through the second half came from being physically overwhelmed rather than from any character failing. When you cannot stop the carry legally, you slow ball illegally. When you cannot hold the line in defence, you go offside to buy a yard. The penalty count read like an indictment; it was a symptom.
Inside all of this, Guido Petti delivered a performance that deserves a stand-alone mention. The Argentine’s open-field intercept, his 10-metre carry and offload for Treadwell’s try, and his 77th-minute breakdown steal on Ted Hill together amounted to the best individual performance in a beaten side this season. Treadwell, Cunningham-South and Dombrandt were all decent alongside him. The rest of the side did what depleted sides do; Quins have an emergency in their hospital ward and this game added to their woes.
League Implications
1000 points. 150 tries. 11 try bonus points, level with Northampton at the top of the attacking charts. Second place on the table, a win behind the leaders, with a home semi-final the reward for the run-in. That is how the league position this afternoon consolidates.
Saints have already shown they will snatch narrow wins away from home, Sale face Saracens on Sunday and the top of the table could look different by Monday morning. What is not going to look different is the attacking profile Bath are now carrying into the closing weeks. Sevens tries against a top-flight side on a Champions Cup recovery week, with the strongest XV on the field and no apparent sense of strain, is a template performance. Van der Linde’s late bonus on top of the seven speaks to a bench depth mentality that keeps asking more questions when the game is already won.
The Champions Cup semi-final is waiting for Bath and three rounds of the Premiership regular season remain and they’ll need every bit of their depth to fight a campaign on two fronts.