Bath Nil Newcastle In Season Opener
Bath recorded the Aviva Premiership’s first win, with an impressive 21-0 victory over Newcastle, away at Kingston Park on Friday night.
Bath’s impressive new-look backline managed to tackle the North East’s awful conditions and come out as eventual victors.
The game also saw the Premiership return for Dean Richards, now Newcastle coach, who has been banned from England’s top flight for four years after his involvement in Harlequin’s fake blood scandal.
The West Country backs and powerful set of forwards dominated the evening encounter, with the edge over their opponents from start to finish.
Recent young signing, George Ford, made a promising start to his first Premiership game in a Bath shirt, with two successful penalties in the first half, unlike Newcastle’s Phil Goodman, who sent both a drop-goal and penalty wide of the target.
Bath went into the half leading 6-0. Ford added another penalty just before the hour mark. Given the treacherous, difficult conditions, Bath effectively sealed the victory with a try from replacement prop Anthony Perenise, who clambered over the line from short range.
Bath sealed the victory with impressive forward display off a driving lineout, eventually rewarding their efforts with a late penalty try.
The game’s difficult conditions and powerful running saw a number of injuries and replacements.
Newcastle’s Jamie Helleur suffered a serious-looking injury, as he was stretchered off the field, after attempting to tackle a rampaging Matt Banahan. An injury just before the half time whistle saw ex-rugby league player, Kyle Eastmond, leave the Bath backline to be replaced by new signing Gavin Henson for his debut.
A new-look Bath were impressive in their season’s opener. However, after beating Worcester in their first game of last season and then failing to win another game on the road for the rest of the year, it is still early days.
Dean Richards commented that: "We got ourselves into the right positions at times but we managed to shoot ourselves in the foot on occasions, but it's something we will take heart from," when he spoke to BBC Sport.
"We just need to be a bit more clinical in what we do. The first half we didn't take our chances and they went in with points up.
"We didn't have quite the unity of turnovers as we would have hoped and we didn't capitalise on having the elements with us and playing in the right areas as we should have done."
Next week, Newcastle travel to Northern rivals Sale on Friday, whilst Bath welcome reigning champions Leicester to the Rec on Saturday afternoon.
Line-Ups:
Newcastle: A. Tait; Cato, Barnes, Helleur, Catterick; Godman, Blair; Montanella, Vickers, Brookes, Del Fava, MacLeod, Barrow, Saull, Hogg (capt).
Replacements: Powell for Helleur (9), Strain for Brookes (56), M. Wilson for Del Fava (56).
Not Used: McGuigan, S. Wilson, York, Fury, Hodgson.
Bath: Watson; Rokoduguni, Joseph, Eastmond, Banahan; Ford, Stringer; James, Webber, Wilson, Hooper (capt), Attwood, Garvey, Gilbert, Houston.
Replacements: Henson for Eastmond (39), Young for Stringer (55), Catt for James (52), Batty for Webber (52), Perenise for Wilson (52), Day for Hooper (53), Faosiliva for Gilbert (66).
Not Used: Biggs.
