Bath softened Edinburgh up in the first half, scoring four tries through their front-row and penalty try from the scrum, and then after a quiet third-quarter, they cut loose with their star-studded backline, capitalising on the Scottish team’s exhaustion which led to too many forced errors and missed tackles to possibly hope to be competitive at this level.

“I think the fundamental errors that we made without being under pressure took its toll, and against a team that has a lot of power like Bath, I think we could have been more accurate with ball in hand,” said head coach Sean Everitt. “We gave away an intercept try and then knocked on and they scored from the turnover. With those backs, they’re lethal and they punished us for the errors that we made.

“I would like to field that our strongest team tonight, if we didn’t have injuries and obviously didn’t feel that the players needed rest [but] I still believe that we’ve made the right choices,” said Everitt, when asked if he stands by his decision to rest Pierre Schoeman, Liam McConnell, captain Magnus Bradbury and Wes Goosen for such a high-profile and potentially important match. “We’ve rested four players in a squad of 43, so that shouldn’t make a big difference.

“But when you’ve got the injury list that we have [17 players currently out], it does make it difficult, but I still believe that players should be rested, and I think I’d rather look at the injury list rather than resting players because that’s got to happen regardless.”

Edinburgh are going to have to get straight back on the horse when an out of sorts but still dangerous Bulls side visit Hive Stadium in the URC next Friday night, offering the opportunity of some valuable league points in the race to make the end-of-season play-offs.

“As you know, this team’s got a lot of fight in it,” insisted Everitt. “They’re not going to give up, and we’re certainly going to put in a performance next week against the Bulls.

“It’s always going to be tough, but I think the positive out of it is that maybe 18 months ago, we wouldn’t have fielded this team tonight with the injuries that we had. So we’ve got to work on our depth in our squad, and obviously as these youngsters get better and as they gain international experience we could end up with a second-string team that is international quality, and that’s what we’re working towards.

“We’re not the only team that has rested players in away games. That’s happened across the competition. You saw the Stormers last week against the Harlequins resting players. The Bulls haven’t gone full noise tonight as well. All the franchises need to look after their players, not just Edinburgh.

The hosts put Edinburgh under pressure with some ferocious contacts straight from kick-off, but the visitors managed to weather that minor storm and ended up taking a third minute lead when Tom Dunn was penalised for challenging Ben Vellacott as he tried to move the ball away from the base of a ruck.

Ross Thompson slotted the points and then delivered an even better service to his team with an excellent rip and steal off Ollie Lawrence less than a metre from the Edinburgh line, and the the stand-off also bravely collected a Finn Russell cross-kick under pressure from Joe Cokanasiga as Edinburgh worked hard to contain a period of relentless pressure from Bath.

Eventually, however, the inevitable happened, with Thomas du Toit powering over from close-range following an initial tap-and-go charge from Dunn.

Bath were straight back on the offensive when a loose slap at a bouncing ball by Piers O’Conor was hacked ahead, forcing debutant Malelili Satala to slide back over his own line as he tried to rescue the situation, leading to a totally dominant home scrum which a penalty-try (to the light-hearted frustration of Alfie Barbeary who had done well to control the ball at the base and thought he had claimed a No 8 pick-up try).

When Beno Obano bulldozed over just after the half-hour mark, Russell again converted, as Bath’s power game began to really turn the screw – but Edinburgh weren’t quite ready to hoist the white flag, and hit back with an excellent team try bejewelled with some sparkling individual contributions.

First flanker Freddy Douglas showed his relentlessness and jackaling prowess to turn over the ball inside his own 22 after Harry Paterson had done well to bring down Ollie Lawrence, then the full-back got back involved to step mesmerisingly through the defensive line and break into Bath’s half, before Ben Vellacott arrived on the scene to change the angle of attack, and a well-worked scissors sent O’Conor galloping under the posts.

It was undoubtedly the play of the match so far, but Bath had the final say of the half, and hit the changing rooms with the bonus-point tied up after their pack power once again put Edinburgh through the mincer, leading to Dunn burrowing over to make it a full-house of front-row try-scorers for the hosts.

Edinburgh’s cause wasn’t helped by Harri Morris, a 25th minute replacement after Ewan Ashman suffered a neck spasm, twice being blown (either side of half-time) for squint line-out throws inside Bath’s 22. When you are under that much pressure up-front, such unforced errors is devastating to a team’s hopes of somehow staying in the contest.

Despite this, it took 16 minutes of the second half for Bath to strike again, with slick hands including a great flat pass from Max Ojomo giving Cokanasiga a sniff on the right, and the big winger out-paced or brushed-off four Edinburgh tacklers on his way to the line.

That try clearly gave the West Country men a taste for some more free-flowing rugby, and further broke Edinburgh morale, with beautiful hands leading to Ojomo once again feeding Cokanasiga, who had come off his wing to streaked clear, before Ben Spencer popped up on his inside to finish the move.

Not to be outshone by his pal on the other, Henry Arundell then burst into life, first making a good ground on the left before fumbling the ball as he rode a tackle, then sweeping round to score to the right of the posts on an arching run.

The wheels were now well and truly off for Edinburgh, and another sweeping Bath attack through a pedestrian defence saw Cokanasiga claim his second and his team’s eighth try of the night.

Arundell came close to claiming his second by chasing down a kick ahead, but the bounce of the ball off the post did not go his way, and it was James Lang who emerged in possession. But the Edinburgh centre couldn’t clear, and from a turnover Bath sent the ball to the left, which allowed Ollie Lawrence to finish in the corner with an acrobatic dive. Russell maintained his 100 percent record off the tee with an excellent conversion from the touchline.

Bath had a chance to bring up the big 7-0 on the stroke of full-time after replacement hooker Archie Griffin burst through the middle, drew last man Darcy Graham and delivered a pass to Russell, but the Scot somehow fumbled with the line at his mercy – which he was able to laugh off given the circumstances.

 

Teams –

Bath: T de Glanville (S Carreras 53); J Cokanasiga, O Lawrence (C Redpath 63), M Ojomoh, H Arundell; F Russell, B Spencer (T Carr-Smith 63); B Obano (F van Wyk 63), T Dunn (D Frost 63), T du Toit (A Giriffn 63), Q Roux, R Molony (T Hill 55), G Pepper, S Underhill (M Reid 63), A Barbeary,

Edinburgh: H Paterson; D Graham, P O’Conor, J Lang, M Satala (J Brown 78); R Thompson (B Healy, 62), B Vellacott (C Shiel 55); J Whitcombe (M Jones 71), E Ashman (H Morris 25), O Blyth-Laffety (P Hill 53), C Hunter-Hill (E McVie 71), G Young, T Dodd, F Douglas (C Boyle 62), B Muncaster.

Referee: Gianluca Gnecchi (Italy)

 

Scorers –

Bath: Tries: Du Toit, Penalty Try, Obano, Dunn, Cokanasiga 2, Spencer, Arundell, Lawrence; Con: Russell 8.

Edinburgh: Tries: O’Connor; Con: Thompson; Pen: Thompson.

Scoring sequece (Bath first): 0-3; 3-5; 3-7; 3-14;; 3-18; 3-21; 8-21; 10-21; 10-26; 10-28 (h-t) 10-33; 10-35; 10-40; 10-42; 10-47; 10-49; 10-54; 10-56; 10-61; 10-63.