Bath Batter the Tigers
There appears to be a new trend going around in the Premiership, one which sees supposed title contenders receive absolutely monumental spankings from their supposed rivals. It was Quins last week, and it was Leicester this week, who took a 45 – 0 pasting at the hands of their age-old nemesis, Bath, at the Rec. Unbelievable doesn’t quite do it justice.
There were perhaps questions raised about the visitors’ chances when centre partners Anthony Allen and Manu Tuilagi both withdrew before kickoff – leaving a midfield combination of a fly half (Owen Williams) and a wing/centre (Matt Smith) – but, whatever their injury woes, Bath were simply magnificent. Every single key battle ground – the set piece, the breakdown, the contact area – was dominated by the West Country outfit, who were full value for the bonus point win, with tries from Semesa Rokoduguni, Jonathan Joseph, Kyle Eastmond, Olly Woodburn and the 56 year old Peter Stringer. All sorts of records were broken – Leicester’s heaviest ever Premiership defeat, the first time they had been nilled in over a decade – in a stunning day at the Rec. A nightmare, for Tigers fans.
On the subject of nightmares, the problems just keep on coming for the league’s basement boys, London Welsh and Newcastle Falcons. The Exiles found themselves on the end of another thumping as they went down 46 – 8 at Sale, with the only good news the fact that they’d kept the score under 50 for the first time this season, whilst the Falcons were unable to prevent Saints from running out 35 -10 winners in the North-East. Elsewhere, the Chiefs pinched a thriller at Kingsholm with a 22 – 25 win against Gloucester, a late Billy Vunipola try helped Saracens grab a 32 – 36 victory away at London Irish, and Harlequins recovered from last week’s humbling with a narrow 26 – 23 win against Wasps at the Stoop.
Aviva Premiership Star Man: Carl Fearns
Connacht shock Leinster
If there were some eye-catching results in England, there were some similar numbers flying around in the PRO12, too. This week, it was the league’s early surprise package, Connacht, who were in the spotlight, picking up a 10 – 9 win against the reigning champions, Leinster, in Galway. In a display packed with bruisingly physical defence, the hosts were forced to fight back from a 9 – 0 deficit after just 18 minutes to claim their first win in 11 provincial derbies. They had Kieran Marmion to thank for that – the scrum half scored an electric solo try to help give his side the lead and, despite late pressure from the men in blue, Connacht held on for a famous win.
Elsewhere, Ospreys impressed as they battered an Edinburgh side which is quickly developing Jekyll and Hyde-like tendencies in a 62 – 13, 9 try romp in Swansea. Glasgow had more luck as they won 13 – 33 in Newport against the Dragons, with the Scarlets putting in a thumping display of their own as they routed Treviso 43 – 0 at Parc Y Scarlets. The other Italian side, Zebre, didn’t fare too much better either, going down 31 – 5 away at Munster, whilst Ulster turned over the Blues 26 – 9 in Cardiff.
Guinness PRO12 Star Man: Kieran Marmion
Toulon Bounce Back
After suffering a shocking home defeat last week, Toulon decided that somebody would have to pay for that debacle – unfortunately for Brive, they happened to be the next in line for the Galacticos of European rugby. The European champions stormed to a 13 – 53 victory, with tries raining in from Delon Armitage (2), Rudi Wulf (3), Drew Mitchell, Maxime Mermoz and Sebastien Tillous-Borde, although they were helped by Brive playing for almost an hour with 14 men after Peet Marais was red-carded for an elbow on Romain Taofifenua.
Toulon’s conquerors from last week, Stade Francais, ensured that they messed up the opportunity to take advantage of that win by losing 23 – 3 away to Montpellier, whilst Racing Metro claimed an impressive (and comfortable) 27 – 16 victory over Toulouse. There was a big win as well for Clermont, who ran out 43 – 12 winners over Lyon, and there were triumphs as well Castres, Grenoble and Bordeaux – the latter acting in a decidedly un-French manner by winning away from home.
Top 14 Star Man: Rudi Wulf
With plenty of contenders for Try of the Week, I was tempted to give it to Marmion, but in truth you could have picked almost any from Bath’s crushing of Leicester. I’ll go for Peter Stringer’s effort though – another clinical Bath breakout against a horrendously porous Tigers defence, with slick hands and offloading, allowing the veteran nine to trot over for a classy score.
Fancy taking on the reigning Pro 12 champions all by yourself to help your side claim a famous win? That’s what our Hero of the Week Kieran Marmion did, as he scored a superb solo try to add to an already impressive performance, earning Connacht a surprise victory, and himself a man of the match award and free drinks in Galway for the rest of the year.
At 3-3 against the European Champions after 20 minutes, it’s ill-advised to get yourself sent off for a pointless elbow to the face of an opponent. But that’s what Villain of the Week Peet Marais managed to do, and as a result, Toulon tore Brive to pieces. Not his finest hour.
By Mike Cooper (@RuckedOver)
Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images
5 replies on “Best of the weekend: Bath batter Tigers, Connacht shock Leinster”
So am I alone in thinking that how London Welsh have been hammered in the first three rounds makes a mockery of the promotion process from The Championship to The Premiership and National League 1 to The Championship?
It, in my eyes is totally unfiar for a team to finish top of a league not to win promotion, I understand the increase revenue from the playoffs but having a team say finish 30 points ahead of a team in 4th and not get promoted is awful, also 1 team up from National League 1 is also laughable.
The fairest way to sort out the Promotion/Relegation issue is simple the bottom team in the higher divsion is replaced by the winners of the lower division and second bottom have a two legged playoff against second top. As lets be fair the only reason Newcastle were not relegated last year was because Worcester were worse than them and they were the poorest teams by a long chalk.
Massively agree with you here! I think the play-off’s for promotion are hugely unfair. The only reason it makes sense at the top of the Premiership is that top teams lose internationals for long periods, which could affect the outcome of the title.
No Championship team suffers from this. The best team over the course of the season should be promoted, simple as that. No play offs needed.
I’m not even a fan of your play-off idea for second bottom etc.; but I can see the financial value of having this implemented.
Backing here as well. Bottom and top should be a straight up/down and having a second top/bottom battle will ensure good turnover if more than one side simply isn’t competing at the right level or more than one deserve to go up. A more porous barrier between leagues is nothing but good for the sport as a whole.
Being promoted and being forced to make 25 signings isn’t competition-making material. That many new players can’t gel fast enough to be truly competitive a level up and it destroys club culture. Clubs should be able to see months ahead of the summer break whether they’re likely to head up.
Whatever the merits or otherwise of the promotion process London Welsh is not actualy the team that won promotion. With 25 new signings and 14 of the squad that won promotion discarded it is effectively a new team. It has not earned it’s place in the Premiership and is now receiving the hammerings which it richly deserves.
OK I’m old fashioned I admit but to throw out the team that did the hard yards and replace them with a bunch of mercenaries without giving them at least a chance to prove themselves leaves a bad taste. I know it’s a hard professional world but is there really no place left for team spirit and loyalty? It’s hard but Exeter showed it can be done without caving in completely to mamon.
I’m pretty shocked by the humbling that the Os handed out. A supposedly weak front five come up against a hard edged Scottish outfit – most people expected the Os to struggle. Fantastic performance, hugely worrying for Edin that they just gave up for the last 20.
Ah Blues – Patchell at FB was a stupid idea – Gareth Davies is a hard working trier but not the quality we need, as evidenced by the killer interception pass that ended the game as a competition. We seem to have fixed our problems up front but now lack any sort of creativity behind. I can only hope this is the oft seen progress of a new coach – comes in, works on defence, creativity comes later.