'Bath's power ultimately the difference'

BBC News

06-05-2025

In an alternate reality the opening 10 minutes of Edinburgh v Bath goes like this.
Ali Price continues to chase his kick and thanks to a fortunate bounce touches down. Ross Thompson kicks the conversion.
Harry Paterson doesn't get injured. A few minutes later, buoyed by that earlier successful kick, Thompson slots a relatively easy penalty.
As a result, there is no dropped high ball from the 22 dropout or a penalty given away at the scrum and Bath don't score.
Boom. Ten-point swing right there and the game maybe takes on a different complexion.
The injury to Paterson was the most hurtful of those incidents. Not because he would have made us 15 points better over the 80 minutes, but his departure meant our backline was disrupted.
Mosese Tuipulotu came on at 12 and James Lang moved out to 13 with Matt Currie taking the wing slot. He's done well on the wing when required but the movement of Lang from 12, where he's been influential and a good link for Thompson, kind of put the brakes on a backline that felt like it lacked cohesion thereafter.
Our lack of discipline and accuracy were the issues we never really overcame. Two incidents sum it up.
The first being on the run-up to Bath's second try. An overthrow on the 5m line resulted in a tap back and then a knock-on. We never got out of that corner until Bath scored through Tom Dunn.
The second being at the restart after Edinburgh's first penalty try of the season. Javan Sebastian got pinged for obstruction. That penalty was followed by another three as the relentless forward power of Bath kept us cornered.
Sam Skinner was then yellow carded and any advantage from the Bath yellow evaporated without Edinburgh even getting out of their own half.
Ultimately this was about power. All six Bath tries came from forwards. Bath won 119 rucks to Edinburgh's 39, and nine of the top 10 tacklers in the match were in Edinburgh colours.
It wasn't the prettiest of ways to win a match but it was highly effective and as hard as Edinburgh worked in defence, it wasn't enough.
I'm disappointed but not crestfallen. We were in the game right up to the 75th minute. We'll be back and probably pretty soon.
Sandy Smith can be found at The Burgh Watch, external