Bristol Rugby 20 – Bath Rugby 33
Despite being a cold and gloomy day to open the Guiness Premiership season, it was sunshine all round for the Bath fans as they ran out convincing winners over local rivals, Bristol Rugby.
Making the short, albeit time consuming trip to the Memorial Stadium, the game began in far from ideal circumstances, as Bristol crashed through Bath’s haphazard defence to get the scoring under way with barely 3 minutes on the clock. Some fine running, and poor defence saw Bristol’s Andrew Blowers touch down and new boy Adrian Jarvis convert to send the home crowd into rapture.
However this joy was to be short lived as it stirred something in the Bath team and they were not to be outdone by the men from ‘down the M4′ and after some excellent inidivdual work from Joe Maddock, the visitors were soon back on level terms.
As both teams exchanged penalties, tempers began to flare in the scrum with veteran Aussie lock and Bath new boy Justin Harrison looking to be at the middle of everything and loving every minute. The mounting pressure though was all Bath’ s and so it was, that man-mountain winnger, Matt Banahan, was able to burst through the centre of the Bristol defence before off loading to Tom Cheeseman to give Bath a 17-10 lead.
With half time looming, it looked as it Bath would go in for the break with a healthy lead, however that was until diminutive Samoan winger, David Lemi, conjured up a piece of individual brilliance from well in his own half. In a few minutes of pre-break magoc, Lemi managed to produce, not only a timely score, but a potential try of the season already. Turning his tackler after a poor clearance kick by Bath, Lemi zigged around at least 5 Bath players before losing the ball in the tackle less than 5 metres from the goal line, and then dribbling the ball over for the touch down. The home fans, along with mascot, Brizzly the bear, were in fine spirits after this and Bath heads were low, as even they were forced to admite they had seen something very special.
Fortunately for the visitors, the Bath of 2008 are not the same team of 2 seasons ago who capitulate in the second half of close games and so it was that a renewed Bath side came out for the second half. Spurred on by laid back fly half Butch James, who had returned from the Tri Nations just this week, he bossed the mid-field superbly, and even managed to fill Olly Barkley’s kicking boots, hitting some fine penalties in the beginning of the 2nd half to help Bath begin to build a powerful lead.
The team from the Avon valley were soon more than 2 scores ahead, thanks to an excellent move from the backs that culminated in popular second row-er, Jonny ‘Fantastic’ Fa’amatuainu getting the ball over the line, despite the claims of a forward pass from the increasingly desperate Bristol fans.
As the clock ran down and tempers continued to flare, Bristol were unable to turn long periods of pressure into valuable points as they squandered several gilt-edged oppurtunities to draw level. As Bristol failed to score again, Bath ran out deserved winners and if only Leicester hadn’t gone on to beat Gloucester to grab all the headlines, then Bath would have recieved the deserved plaudits for their efforts on this cold, September day. As the first weekend of the season ended, Bath were rightly, top of the Guinness Premiership (through points scored, not just alphabetical good fortune as they were in the morning) and are once more, kings of the west country (until the arrival of Gloucester at the Rec next week of course!).
