Sharks drown in Bath
By madhatter
April 4 2004
After a sunny week, with 11 players re-signing, the doom and gloom came on Saturday when the weather turned wet and windy, sweeping across the ‘open air’ rec. As the teams ran out, it started to rain with a groan of typical from the crowd...
... This certainly made for an interesting kicking game to compare Olly with ‘our Charlie’, back form injury.
The game started at a fast and furious pace, from the outset we could see that the kicking was going to be interesting and any ones guess as to where they went. Bath seemed to have the upper hand here, until I realised they had the benefit of the wind in the first half.
Both teams soon settled down, and it became evident that we were going to be put under a lot of pressure from their scrums, as they had the more beef in the pack. First up was a penalty to Bath kicked by Barkley for killing the ball (I think?). But not long after, Charlie charged down one of Catt’s clearance kicks to score in the corner, but unfortunately missed the conversion, (kicking straight into the wind).
With some dazzling stuff end to end, territory being sought after, with Bath using the kicking tactic well by Catt using the wind meant that it was not before long that their back row combined boshing up the field for Lipman to score, Olly missed the conversion. So it was then 8-5 which is what it remained till half-time, but not before some more scrums that didn’t quite go our way and Bath turning it on the head. But Sale where rewarded with another penalty for Bath holding on, after a massive tackle on Catt with Jos in support, Charlie took the penalty but missed. So the score stayed the same. Sale had started to dominate a bit with getting ball out wide and running it, once they realised the kicks weren’t working. Jos in the centre had a good game distributing out wide and lots of probing kicks through, Titterrell was everywhere, with Perret always being the first to the breakdown and securing good ball. So going in at half time, I was optimistic that with the wind we could do it.
Good support for Sale, helped by a northern rugby club starting the Sale chants!
On to the 2nd half, Bath started to dominate once more, and by putting their number 8, big Samoan Feaunati on the wing, they boshed up field for Lipman to score, Olly missed the conversion, which was in the same place as Charlie’s, 13-5 to Bath. Cairns had replaced Titterrell, and Schofield replaced ‘Big Red’ who went of injured.
A few dubious decisions from the ref (Rowden) had the crowd looking dazed as what they were for. Catt started running the ball out of defence and Bath got a second wind and started attacking effectively, after some very good defence, which Sale could not penetrate so went away from their end with nothing, bar a missed penalty. A big tackle on Olly had him down, and worryingly it looked like he was out cold, but full respect to White who noticed and went over to him to make sure he was all right whilst play carried on. Fortunately he was ok but had to go off so Malone then came on for him. Fully managed to intercept a pass on the half way line with only Catt to beat, unfortunately they caught him but he managed to retain the ball, had it been Chris Jones it could have been a try.
Sale and Bath started making a few substitutions, Walshe came on for Wiggy, Day came on for Fully, Turner and Stewart swapped, for us. Tindall went off as Scaysbrook came on, Bell was replaced by Matt Stevens.
Mayor was starting to break the gain line, with Robinson but the attacks always fell apart. Davies was starting to do some brilliant breaks from the base of the scrum, as the srcums had settled down by the end, but still there was any real lack of inspiration from the backs, we had good possession but the Bath defence was just holding on and on and we couldn’t cross. Then another charge down the field by Catt led to us giving them a penalty for offside in injury time, which Malone converted. I thought right that’s it not even a bonus point, until some magic from Jason carving through the defence, Mayor supporting, a ruck set up on the try line, led to Sherri charging through under the posts, Charlie got the conversion to set the score at 16-12 and a bonus point secured. With the two teams below us playing each other today, we will slip to 6th in the table.
Closing thoughts, a good physical battle with a few dazzling runs and good defence from both teams. It could of gone either way as it was a fairly even match up. Altogether not a disheartening match, and with Twickers in a couple of weeks we have something good to look forward to. My man of the match for Sale was Hugh Perret, quiet but effective.
Bath: Catt,
Crockett, Maggs, Tindall, Danielli, Barkley, Wood, Flatman, Mears,
Bell,
Borthwick, Fidler, Beattie, Lipman, Feaunati.
Replacements: Martens, Hawkins, Stevens, Human, Malone, Scaysbrook,
Gray.
Replacements: Cairns, Turner, Day, Schofield, Going, Hercus and Walshe