{"id":515250,"date":"2026-04-06T04:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T04:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/515250\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T04:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T04:01:14","slug":"henry-arundell-inspires-bath-to-come-from-behind-win-over-saracens-champions-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/515250\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry Arundell inspires Bath to come-from-behind win over Saracens | Champions Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Henry Arundell\u2019s two tries helped Bath to a tight victory over Saracens as they squeezed their way into the quarter-finals of the Champions Cup. The English champions trailed 10-0 at the break against a Sarries side unrecognisable from the one crushed here<\/a> in the Prem, but the introduction of their heavyweight bench, with Thomas du Toit to the fore and man of the match, turned the contest.<\/p>\n

The game, in which the referee, Nika Amashukeli, was replaced at half-time for Ben Connor after coming off second-best in a collision with the Bath<\/a> back-row Josh Bayliss, went down to the wire and a late try from Noah Caluori set up a nervy finish. But Arundell\u2019s second with the final play settled the outcome for a relieved Bath and booked a last-eight tie at home to Northampton on Friday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes in knockout rugby, you just need to get the job done. That\u2019s what it feels like today,\u201d said Bath captain Ben Spencer. \u201cWe know we\u2019re under no illusions that we\u2019re going to have to be a lot better to get through to the semi-finals.\u201d<\/p>\n

A fortnight ago, Bath thrashed Saracens 62-15, a result that pointed to only one outcome, but at the back of their minds Bath would have been wary. Saracens have it within themselves to produce a big performance \u2013 they beat Toulouse in the pool stage<\/a> \u2013 and with Maro Itoje and Jamie George stiffening the side this time around they dug out another one.<\/p>\n

In the first half Bath\u2019s basics were off. Passes went to ground and the lineout went astray. Even Finn Russell fumbled. At the same time, Saracens<\/a> were impressively resolute. Their maul defence was especially strong, stopping Bath at source, and Rhys Carr\u00e9\u2019s power made the scrum a plentiful penalty source.<\/p>\n

Ollie Lawrence bursts through a tackle during Bath\u2019s 31-22 Champions Cup win over Saracens. Photograph: David Rogers\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The visitors took the lead in the 14th minute through their zippy scrum-half, Charlie Bracken, who fooled Bath\u2019s blind-side cover with a dummy and had the pace to race over. But in the second half, with Bath\u2019s scrum reinforced by the arrival of Du Toit \u2013 \u201cone of the best players in the whole of rugby\u201d according to the Bath director of rugby, Johann van Graan \u2013 the game took on a different flavour.<\/p>\n

Quick GuideRoundup: Toulon edge past Stormers, Toulouse hammer BristolShow\"\"<\/p>\n

The three-time winners Toulon reached the last eight with a nerve-wracking 28-27 win at home to Stormers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Top 14 side made a perfect start at the Stade Mayol as Ben White slithered through for an early try.\u00a0But the Cape Town-based Stormers came back with a penalty before lock Adr\u00e9 Smith piled over for a converted try.<\/p>\n

The lead did not last long as a superb long pass from Argentina fly-half Tom\u00e1s Albornoz found Ga\u00ebl Dr\u00e9an (pictured) in space on the left. The France wing collected, cut inside and dotted down, but\u00a0Jurie Matthee\u2019s penalty cut Toulon\u2019s lead to 14-13 at the break.<\/p>\n

Stormers reclaimed the lead when Warrick Gelant chased down replacement Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu\u2019s through kick, recycling for Evan Roos to crash over.\u00a0Toulon\u2019s reclaimed their one-point lead with a converted try from Mathis Fert\u00e9 and stretched that further when Fiji wing Seta Tuicuvu jinked his way through the South African defence 15 minutes from the end.<\/p>\n

If Toulon thought it was all over at 28-20, Stormers had other ideas with the replacement scrum-half Imad Khan going over two minutes from time to narrow the gap to a single point. With 19 seconds remaining Toulon\u2019s All Black legend Ma\u2019a Nonu, 43, collected a yellow and gave away a penalty for a dangerous tackle.\u00a0Stormers kicked for touch and launched a fierce assault on the Toulon line. Smith thought he had won the match with his second try but the video referee saw no clear evidence and Toulon got through by the skin of their teeth.<\/p>\n

Sale’s experienced George Ford won the battle of the England fly-halves, kicking 16 points against Marcus Smith\u2019s Harlequins in a 26-17 victory in west London.<\/p>\n

Sale will face Leinster or Edinburgh, who face off in Dublin on Sunday, in the next round.<\/p>\n

Glasgow edged the Bulls 25-21 and will welcome Toulon next week.\u00a0The Warriors were 14-12 behind at half-time in driving rain before Patrick Schickerling and Stafford McDowall scored in the second half for Franco Smith\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

The France centre Kalvin Gourgues scored two scintillating tries as Toulouse reached the quarter-finals with a 59-26 hammering of Bristol.\u00a0Gourgues crossed twice in the first half in glorious sunshine in south-west France to set up a last eight-tie next weekend against the holders, Bordeaux B\u00e8gles, or Leicester, who meet on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The wings Matthis Lebel and Teddy Thomas also claimed doubles while Antoine Dupont provided four assists for Toulouse\u2019s nine tries in total.\u00a0Fitz Harding, Kalaveti Ravouvou, James Williams and Noah Heward touched down in a losing effort for Bristol.\u00a0AFP<\/p>\n

Photograph: Clement Mahoudeau\/AFP<\/p>\n

Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n

Four minutes in, the speedster Arundell came off his wing to take a pass from Charlie Ewels and scorch through the defence to score his first try from 40 metres out. In the 49th minute they took the lead through a try from Joe Cokanasiga even though they were shorthanded at the time with Beno Obano in the sin-bin.<\/p>\n

They stretched away with the try of the afternoon from Spencer. Andy Onyeama-Christie spilled what would have been a scoring pass on the Bath goalline and in a flash the home side were on the counterattack. Pepper, back from a first-half spell in the sin-bin, shipped the ball on to Cokanasiga who outpaced the first wave of cover before finding Barbeary who sent Spencer on his way.<\/p>\n

The Rec rose in adulation thinking the job was done, but the cussed visitors hit back with another score from Max Malins in the left corner from Caluroi\u2019s pass.<\/p>\n

Ollie Lawrence muscled his way over for Bath\u2019s fourth try with the Saracens second-row Harry Wilson in the sin-bin, but still the visitors would not go away. Caluori brought them back within strike range with six minutes remaining, but Bath finally killed Saracens off after a relentless forward barrage as the exhausted visitors ran out of numbers.<\/p>\n

Quick GuideBath 31-22 Saracens teams and scorersShow<\/p>\n

Bath Carreras; Cokanasiga, Lawrence, Ojomoh (Redpath 72), Arundell; Russell, Spencer; Obano (van Wyk 71), Dunn (Tuipulotu 63), Griffin (du Toit 41), Roux (Hill 61), Ewels, Bayliss (Underhill 61), Pepper (Van Wyk 47-57), Barbeary (Reid 67).\u00a0Tries\u00a0Arundell 2, Cokanasiga, Spencer, Lawrence.\u00a0Cons\u00a0Russell 3. Yellow cards\u00a0Pepper 27, Obano 47.<\/p>\n

Saracens Daly; Caluori, Tompkins, Farrell (Lozowski 71), Elliott (Malins 63); Burke, Bracken (Van Zyl 57); Carre (Mawi 57), George (Dan 57), Street (Riccioni 41), Itoje, Tizard (Wilson 57), McFarland, Onyeama-Christie, Willis.<\/p>\n

Tries\u00a0Bracken, Malins, Caluori.\u00a0Cons\u00a0Farrell, Burke. Pen\u00a0Farrell.\u00a0Yellow card\u00a0Wilson 69.<\/p>\n

Referee\u00a0Nika Amashukeli (Geo); Ben Connor (Wal) ht. Attendance\u00a014,509.<\/p>\n

Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n

It was a result that left the Saracens director of rugby, Mark McCall, disappointed, but a performance that made him proud. \u201cI know we\u2019ve got a good team, but we\u2019ve been really Jekyll and Hyde all year,\u201d he said. \u201cI cannot remember which one\u2019s the good one, but we were that one today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a hard place to come \u2013 they\u2019re a very good side, one of the best in Europe \u2013 and to go toe to toe shows our team what they\u2019re capable of. It\u2019s more enjoyable to play the way we did today than it was two weeks ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Henry Arundell\u2019s two tries helped Bath to a tight victory over Saracens as they squeezed their way into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-515250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}