By Nicola Curtis
November 6 2010

It has been the accepted practice over the last couple of years to send out a relatively weak or young team in the LV cup; referred to optimistically by coaches as “up and coming” or a “squad team”, it is not always a strategy that worked.

It was therefore something of a surprise to see the line-up for Friday night’s game against the Cardiff Blues, as it looked like it wouldn’t be a case of sending lambs to the slaughter. 

And actually, it seemed like it would be a good chance to get a long, hard look at the players we only see for ten minutes at the end of a Premiership game, or hear rumours are playing really well for Bath United.

Starts were handed Guy Mercer and Ben Williams and they had a big opportunity to show the rest of the team exactly what they could do.

In addition to this, a return to first team action for Peter Short, a run out as fly half for Olly Barkley, and a chance to show his leadership skills for Matt Banahan were just enough to get Bath fans out of the door and into the rain at the end of a long week.

Grey skies had been throwing down a steady, bone chilling mist all day, but despite the weather it was with optimism I arrived at the Rec, hoping to see fireworks on the pitch instead of in the sky.

Bath started the better of the two sides, with a lost scrum by Cardiff leading to a promising Bath attack.

This was ended by a knock on, but after a really lovely run from Jack Cuthbert at fullback, Bath were awarded a penalty for a high tackle on Cuthbert; a difficult feat, considering how tall the young man is.

Barkley missed the subsequent penalty kick at goal but the fans who had turned out on a cold, wet night were given points aplenty a few minutes later when, after a lovely running line from Mark MacMillan, a space opened up for Guy Mercer who almost reached the try line. The ball popped up for captain Banahan, who slammed his not inconsiderable frame over the line for a try. Barkley converted for a 7-0 lead.

Cardiff Blues bit back fairly quickly through two penalty kicks at goal from stand- off Gareth Davies. A few Bath attacks ended through knock ons- the ball was becoming slippery by now- and it took a moment of intelligence from Barkley for Bath to get their next points. Jack Cuthbert took down several Cardiff players before offloading to Barkley, who chipped a kick through to the left of the pitch, where it was gathered by Tom Biggs, who went over for a well worked try. Barkley’s conversion just went through the sticks, bouncing off the right upright to give the hosts a 14-6 lead.

After another penalty from the Blue’s, they almost scored a try when Barkley’s kick was charged down and kicked downfield. It took every effort from an impressive Biggs to stop an easy try. However, once Gareth Davies’ mates had arrived, it wasn’t long until he popped over the line for a Welsh try; after his conversion of his own score, he had scored all of the visitors 16 points. It was a bad kick from Barkley which led to this try, in stark contrast to his kick a few moments earlier when he sent Biggs in for a try.

Cardiff were not in the lead for long, and after Barkley kicked another penalty, Bath were leading 17-16.

At this point, the heavens well and truly opened, which was to the detriment of the quality of rugby on the pitch.  Barkley repeated his kick to the left corner to Biggs, but the ball went into touch. A promising attack from Bath followed, and after his forwards did the hard work of getting the ball in front of the posts, Barkley dropped a goal which, although giving him three more points, also meant he landed on his backside in the mud. I’m sure he didn’t mind.

The opening exchanges in the second half were pretty messy; the rain didn’t let up for the rest of the match and the quality dropped a little.

John Yapp was sin-binned for, I think, deliberately knocking the ball on. The Blues seemed to rally from this, and despite conceding another three points through a Barkley penalty, ran some nice attacking lines and moved determinately up the pitch. They added three to their total with another penalty kicked by Gareth Davies.

Two more penalties from Bath stretched the home sides lead.

A Cardiff penalty was kicked into the left corner and lead to what looked like a certain try; it seemed to me as if a Welsh hand had grounded the ball and then knocked it on, but on referring the decision to the TMO, the referee indicated no try had been scored. It was something of a reprieve for Bath, who would have been feeling decidedly twitchy had their lead been reduced in the last ten minutes.

The last few phases of the match did not really go anywhere; the young but exciting Cardiff side rather had the wind knocked out of their sails by the ref’s decision not to award the try.

A wave of young Bath talent came on in the last few minutes of the match, but no more points were scored, and the ball was tamely kicked off to end the match, with a score of 29-19.

Amazingly, given the conditions and the fact that this was an LV cup game, this was a really entertaining match. So often in the Anglo-Welsh cup one team is markedly stronger than the other and we end up with something of a cricket score.

It is to the credit of both sides that a match that could have been simply rain soaked and dull was actually really rather enjoyable.  Although I haven’t mentioned him so far, Fernadez-Lobbe was man of the match for me; strong, powerful and dynamic, he more often had the ball than not, and made great territory gains when he bashed through any pink shirt he saw. Barkley, despite far too many chip kicks through to no-one in particular, had a very good game at fly half. Why he was here playing for us, rather than at Twickenham playing for England is anyone’s guess, but I for one am glad he was.

Josh Ovens, Guy Mercer and Ben Williams also all deserve a mention for an impressive display.