Bath welcomed West Country neighbours Exeter to the Rec on a stunningly beautiful sunny day that promised a feast of running rugby. Both teams came into this fixture with a few losses behind them and needed a win to ensure no tightening of nerves on the last few days of the season.

Bath as the home team probably started the game as favourites, but knew the Chiefs would bring hordes of fans and bags of passion with them in an attempt to get one over on their local rivals.

Bath started well enough, with an Exeter kick in the Bath 22 charged down by scrum half Michael Claassens. The subsequent line out was taken by Bath, who set up a rolling maul which threatened the Exeter line. The ball went to the right and across the field but was spilled by Nick Abendanon, today playing on the wing, with Sam Vesty slotting in at fullback.

Nick Abendanon is double-tackled

It was a good start from Bath, and their luck held as Exeter fly half Gareth Steenson missed a relatively easy penalty in the Bath 22. However, he made up for his mistake a few minutes later when he slotted over another penalty and scored the first points of the match.

Bath’s play rather disintegrated at this point for the majority of the half, with some poor kicking from Butch James setting the standard. Peter Short, looking near to his best, won a line out but the attack afterwards was lame, with Luke Watson isolated and losing the ball.

Exeter broke through the Bath defence in a manner very reminiscent of some of the Leicester tries a fortnight ago; certainly the terrible tackling seemed horribly familiar. Bath managed to quell this particular attack, but a déjà vu moment a few minutes later saw Luke Arscott burst past the Bath defenders and manage to get over the Bath line, despite a desperate attempt by Matt Banahan to stop him. The conversion from Steenson was missed, but Exeter were leading by eight points to nil.

Guy Mercer looks to pass the ball

The majority of the rest of the half was divided between the two teams trying to mount meaningful attacks. In one Exeter attack, the visitors were penalised and James kicked the points, reducing the deficit to five.

An Exeter attack from five metres out was knocked on, and soon it was Exeter under pressure with a Bath scrum ten metres from the Chiefs’ line. They were penalised and James had another chance to add three, which was successful. Bath’s extremely poor play was starting to be ironed out now and a sustained Bath attack on the Exeter line saw the home side go in front when Claassens flicked a pass to Banahan, who saw a gap and crashed through it. James kicked the conversion and at half time Bath were leading 13-8.

Bath may have been bad in the first half, but they started well in the second, with a break from Banahan up the right hand touch line ending in a try for the returning Matt Carraro. James missed the penalty but the score line looked a lot healthier for the home side who led 18-8. Bath extended their lead fairly quickly and Butch kicked a penalty after Exeter were pinged at the scrum and the score was 21-8.

Nathan Catt sidesteps his way through the Exeter defence

This score was cancelled out a few minutes later when Steenson kicked a penalty awarded in a promising Exeter attack.

Bath were awarded a scrum around five metres out from the try line after an attacking display saw former Bath man James Scaysbrook yellow carded for dipping his hand in the ruck. A rather odd scene followed for the next five minutes, with at least five or six re-sets of the scrum, Claassens popping over the tryline but nothing was given because he hadn’t gone from the correct place, and prop Hoani Tui sin binned, leaving Bath with two extra men. Eventually, Bath were penalised and the Chiefs cleared the ball.

An attempt by Exeter to move up the field was firmly stopped by Bath with around 12 minutes to go, when Matt Banahan turned the ball over. We were then treated to the highlight of the match; a fantastic storming break from replacement prop Nathan Catt, who ran at least 50 yards down the pitch, and on reaching the Exeter 22, found Michael Claassens at his heels, to whom he flicked the ball. The scrum half then ran in for a clear try, to the delight of Nathan Catt, who happily accepted the hugs from his team mates and cheers from the crowd.

Michael Claassens finishes off the try

The match was over at this point, but Exeter found it in themselves to push for a bonus point, and scored a try through Matt Jess with around two minutes to go. The conversion was taken, but Exeter were eight points behind, so missed out on the point. The final score was 26-18.

The second half display was much better than the first, although this was not an especially hard feat. We did see some lovely running rugby from both sides, but both sides play was far too error strewn for a really good game.

This was an improvement from last week’s display against Saracens, but was still far from convincing. The moment of the match was definitely Catt’s charge up the field, and I thought his contemporaries Mercer and Ovens also had good games, as did Nick Abendanon.

Photos by Patrick Khachfe | Onside Images