From the Archive - Bath v Saints 1998

By The Archivist
January 23 2003

In our first look back, before Saturdays Powergen QF game, at Saints v Bath encounters of the past we go to the big one, December 1998. The Saints were on a roll and riding high in the league. Bath were there for the taking on a dark, wet December day. And taken they were.......

Christmas Comes
Early As Saints Finally Pull Plug On Battered Bath

Saturday 12th December 1998
Bath 9 Saints 15
Allied Dunbar Premiership

THIS was a massive result for Northampton,
certainly one of the biggest in their long
history. The victory established them at the top
of Allied Dunbar Premiership One, alongside
Leicester, and it was the first time they had
won at Bath in any league or cup match. It was
also Bath's fourth successive league defeat.
No wonder Northampton's delirious players
came back on to the field to celebrate and
wave to groups of their singing supporters.

The really successful teams in rugby have
always been those who have perfected the art
of somehow squeezing out of matches they
could so easily have lost.
Bath had far more possession, dominated most
of the match after the initial stages and
fashioned about 15 half-chances to score a try.
But that try never came. And for that,
Northampton's wonderful defence, and mighty
morale, was responsible.

In the end, despite the authority of the Bath
forwards, in which veteran prop Victor Ubogu
had an absolutely monumental match, Bath
could not carve out the points. They passed up
three chances to kick at goal from close range
in the second half and simply could not batter
their way through the Northampton defence.
Northampton must now be serious contenders
for the Premiership title and it is marvellous
news for a splendid club that they have burst
out of the middle ranks at last.

There will unquestionably be talk of crisis at
Bath and for them to lose four on the trot is
unheard of. The return to action yesterday after
a long absence of the splendid Dan Lyle was a
bright light in a dark winter for them. But they
really have to discover the old passion and
bloody-mindedness because, yesterday, it was
the opposition who showed the indomitable
courage and fanatical will to win usually
displayed by the home team on the Rec.

Northampton were well served by their
competitive centres and by the calmness of
Paul Grayson, while an almost superhuman
effort around the field by their back row filled
in the rest of the holes.

Considering that the top clubs in England are
now putting themselves forward as the leaders
of the professional game and demanding
dominance in any concept of a British league,
it makes you wonder when they are going to
wake up fully to professionalism and all its
implications, especially those concerning the
paying public.

It was bad enough trying to watch a match
through completely inadequate floodlighting,
which was just about bright enough in the
distant days of amateurism when you paid your
money but were hardly entitled to a show. The
lights were pitiful. It is not quite the club's
fault, either, that their ground is so inadequate
for spectator comforts in the modern era.
Granted, half the stadium is uncovered and
deeply uncomfortable on a wretched day, but
the local council are as much to blame for
their shameful reticence in helping out an
institution that has done wonders for the name
of the city.

But what was most culpable yesterday, in the
dark and mud, was that both teams quite
fatuously took the field in jerseys that were
essentially black. Northampton's may have had
a green stripe and Bath's a white one but, after
five minutes, it seemed as if one amorphous
team were playing, and it was quite clear to
me that on one occasion referee Ed Morrison
pulled Bath back and gave them a scrum when
he simply mistook the identity of the team in
possession.

To hell with the replica-jersey market - on wet
days, the teams should play in the most vividly
contrasting jerseys imaginable. It makes you
realise that English clubs, whatever their lofty
self-regard, still have so far to travel.

Nobody travelled far in the first half. It was
10-6 to Northampton at the interval and even
though they started explosively, they were
fortunate to be ahead at the break, especially
as Bath played the final 10 minutes of the half
with only 14 men after David Hilton, the prop,
had been sent to the sin bin for persistent
offside.

Northampton scored their first-half try during a
long period of pressure in the first quarter,
when Grayson drilled Bath back into their own
corner with a couple of superbly struck
penalty kicks to touch. Bath held out against
the first lineout drive and conceded a scrum
after the second, but Pat Lam burst away from
the scrum and, when the ball was recycled,
Matt Dawson weaved his way over between
the posts and the conversion made it 7-0.

Mike Catt kicked two penalties to put Bath on
the board in the first half and, although
Grayson kicked a penalty after 22 minutes to
make it 10-6, Bath could have scored two tries
in the second quarter, most notably when Steve
Hatley and Catt attacked to the right of the
scrum and Ieuan Evans would almost certainly
have scored had he managed to catch a
difficult but takeable pass from Catt.

The second half was almost entirely one-way
traffic and the first 25 minutes of the half
seemed to be conducted within inches of the
Northampton line. Bath persisted in ignoring
chances to kick at goal and they kept on
hammering on through Lyle and Andy Nicol,
around the fringes, and with some battering
runs from Ubogu and Eric Peters.

So many times they were dragged down in the
final yards. The defensive composure of
Northampton was a wonder throughout,
although to be frank, since Hilton had been
banished to the sin bin in the first half, it
seemed that some of Northampton's
transgressions could easily have been dealt
with in the same way. It is harsh to criticise
the officials on such a day, but none of the trio
in charge covered himself in glory and, after
Evans was crudely taken out on the fringes of a
ruck right under the nose of the touch judge, it
made you wonder what on earth the man
thought he was doing out there.

It was ironic, however, that Northampton
should score the critical try after 66 minutes of
the match in what seemed their first attack for
several weeks.

Dawson and Grant Seely led a break out of
defence and Northampton won a lineout near
the Bath line. The throw missed the towering
Richard Metcalfe, fell invitingly over the Bath
line and, with half the home pack apparently
waiting for a whistle that never came, Budge
Pountney fell on the ball to score. Catt had
earlier kicked Bath back to 9-10 but
Pountney's score was a decisive blow in terms
of points and morale.

The pace and competitive edge and the
warlike nature of proceedings never dipped in
intensity, nor did Bath's frantic efforts to claw
Northampton back. But Bath could never
regain all of their territorial ascendancy and
the clock ran down to signal another shift in
the balance of power of the English game.
A few more light-bulbs, so we could have
enjoyed the significance a little more, would
have come in handy.

Team
Nick Beal; Craig Moir, Ansdy Blyth, Matt
Allen, Jon Sleightholme; Paul Grayson, Matt Dawson;
Garry Pagel, Freddie Mendez, Matt Stewart, Rich Metcalfe, Tim
Rodber (capt), Grant Seely, Pat Lam, Budge Pountney.

Saints Scorers
Matt Dawson...................................Try
Budge Poutney................................Try
Ali Hepher................Penalty
.............Conversion


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