Bath blank Benetton Treviso 23-0 at Recreation Ground

Bath Rugby 23-0 Benetton Treviso, Recreation Ground
Scorecard

Bath managed to get their European Champions Cup off to a promising start after beating Benetton Treviso 23-0 at Recreation Ground on Saturday.

Despite the win, Todd Blackadder's men were pushed hard by Benetton Treviso and they also suffered a couple of sin-bins - one on either half but luckily for the Aviva Premiership club it did not prove costly.

Fly-half Josh Lewis, who stepped in the place of Rhys Priestland and Freddie Burns gave a promising start to Bath with back to back penalties that came in the first five minutes but they suffered a setback when prop Nick Auterac was sin-binned in the 26th minute.

However, Treviso failed to capitalise on the advantage of having an extra man, instead Zach Mercer crossed over the hosts at the stroke of half time during which Bath had a 13-0 lead.

The infringements continued from either side and this is time it was Benetton Treviso, who were reduced to 14 men temporarily when Marco Fuser was yellow carded and Lewis kicked his third penalty to stretch their lead to 16 points.

Just before the end of the third quarter, Bath were once again down to 14 men temporarily, this time Tom Dunn was sin-binned but once again they managed to get away with it and a 70th minute try from Aled Brew followed by a conversion from Lewis proved enough as the home side completed a 23-0 victory that saw Bath rise to top position in Pool 5.