Match report:  Aironi  6, Bath Rugby 22

By Tom Bradshaw in Viadana

It may not have been vintage stuff, but it was effective enough. Bath leave Parma on their specially chartered jet this evening knowing that they have five – vital – Heineken Cup championship points in the bag.

Nothing other than a four-try bonus-point victory would have done this afternoon at the Stadio Franco Zaffanella. And that was precisely what Bath accomplished, despite leaving it late for that all-important fourth score.

After last week’s sluggish showing against Biarritz at The Rec, Bath needed to get their European, Pool 4 show on the road with an away win. And it was very close to being mission accomplished just before half-time when the outstanding Nick Abendanon sliced his way over for Bath’s third – and best – try of the afternoon.

Bath succeeded in doing what they failed to do last week against Biarritz: shutting down the opposition’s lynch-pin. Against Biarritz, Dimitri Yachvili ran riot. Today, Ludovic Mercier was routed.

In fairness, the mercurial former Gloucester half-back didn’t do himself any favours. He passed poorly and fired off some pretty tame kicks from hand. But some credit for that must go to the Bath backrow, with Number 8 Simon Taylor in particular cranking up the pressure with some spine-juddering hits around the fringes.

Aironi enjoyed more ball and territory than the scoreline suggested, but a rigid Bath defence didn’t give them an iota. But while the Bath defence was a plus-point, the side’s failure to pose more problems for Aironi at the breakdown warrants investigation.

The Bath set-piece functioned well for the majority of the match, losing its way a little in the second period. And it was the smooth functioning of scrum and lineout that allowed the visiting backs to let rip.

There was no better illustration of this than in the 11th minute. Quick ball off the top of a Bath lineout on the half-way line was followed by a missed pass to Abendanon. He fed wing Tom Biggs who then gathered his own perfectly weighted chip to touchdown in the corner.

Barkley missed the tight-angled conversion – he landed just one throughout the afternoon – and Mercier put Aironi back in contention with a simple penalty.

Wing Matt Carraro wriggled over for Bath’s second after a mix-up among the Aironi three-quarters. That was swiftly followed by a try-saving tackle from Abendanon to keep out Number 8 Nick Williams.

Five minutes before the break Abendanon was in the thick of it again – this time at the other end of the field. He shrugged off a lame challenge by Mercier to surge into the Aironi half before releasing Carraro. Natty handling ensued with the ball, fittingly, finding its way back to Abendanon for him to dot down between the posts. Barkley nudged over the conversion this time and Bath were set fair at 17-3 at the changeover.

But it was another slow start to a second half by Bath. Aironi hardly left the Bath 22 for quarter-of-an-hour, but stout defence meant the Italians’ only reward was another penalty goal.

The bonus-point try came with 10 minutes to go. Skipper Luke Watson shoved the ball up his jumper after Bath won a lineout on the Aironi 5m line and the Bath pack drove him over the whitewash.

But winning in Italy against a new franchise is one thing, repeating the feat on a noisy, cold December night in Belfast against a stubborn Ulster outfit quite another. So while they can bask in the knowledge of a job well done on their plane this evening, the real test of Bath’s European credentials will come in December.

 

Aironi Rugby: D Demas, G Toniolatti, R Penney, G Pavan (M Pratichetti 57), G Rubini, L Mercier (R Bocchino 57), P Canavosio (T Tebaldi 60); S Perugini  (A de Marchi 68), F Ongaro (R Santamaria 78), L Redolfini (Ulises Gamboa 57), M Bortolami, Q Geldenhuys (capt, C del Fava 60), J Erasmus (S Favaro 73), A Benatti, N Williams

Penalties: Mercier (2)

Bath Rugby: N Abendanon (N Scott 79), T Biggs, M Banahan, O Barkley, M Carraro (J Cuthbert 67), S Vesty, M Claassens (M McMillan 70); N Catt (D Flatman 52), P Dixon (R Batty 70), D Wilson (D Bell 45), S Hooper, D Grewcock (I Fernadez Lobbe 29), A Beattie, L Watson (capt, B Skirving 70), S Taylor

Scorers:

Tries: Biggs, Carraro, Abendanon, Watson; Conversion: Barkley

 

Referee: John Lacey (Ireland)

 

Attendance: 4,000