Bath youngsters show great maturity to kick off the Anglo-Welsh cup with a win

Bath took to the road for the first round of rhe Anglo-Welsh cup, and their opponents were London Irish. 

 

With an eye for the future Bath coach Todd Blackadder gave debuts to Levi Davis, Max Green and James Wilson and also starting for the first time were Josh Bayliss and James Phillips. 

 

The game will be one to remembered for both sets of fans for the continual want to play attacking free flowing rugby that resulted in a fabulous game that ebbed and flow right into the final passage of play as Bath edged past Irish 22-26.

 

Freddie Burns back from his suspension showed all the Bath fans what they can look forward to in the next few years with sixteen priceless points from the tee.

 

Bath flew out of the blocks and rewarded within four minutes as centre Ben Tapuai after good work from the forwards and working seamless through the Irish defence he cantered under the posts and Burns duly dispatched the conversion to put Bath 0-7.

 

Unconcerned by the start Irish continued to push and were rewarded a flurry of penalties which they went into the corner to try and level the match up. The home fans weren’t disappointed when Max Northcote-Green went over the whitewash to bring them back within two points.

 

Not content with one try, Northcote-Green crashed over again to bring the scores level, before a Burns penalty just before the interval took Bath into a slender lead at 10-13 at half-time.

 

After the restart Irish came out blazing and scored a try through David Paice as he charged his way through after initial good work at the lineout. 

 

Bath not resting on their laurels, with advantage, fly half Burns’ brilliant awareness picked out debutant Levi Davis who sprung into action like a cricket and snatched at the ball and couple times before gaining control and thundered onto the try line to make it a debut to remember for the youngster!

 

But never one to dwell, Irish got back to their feet and launched another attack which was rewarded when Alex Lewington powered his way over to give them the lead and a bonus point through them scoring four tries.

 

The game was on a knife edge and Burns kept his cool composure as he slotted another two penalties through the upright as Bath narrowly lead 22-26 going into the final moments which had both sets of fans biting their nails.

 

As Irish camped out in Bath’s 22 knowing they only needed a try to get the win the defence from the away team was immacutely and patient as phase after phase was launched at them but held firm, and their reward was an error from Irish and Darren Atkins jumped on the loose ball and was given to Max Green to boot the ball out of bounds to give the young Bath team the win!

 

 

Bath can look forward to the next round where they welcome Leicester to the Rec this Friday and Freddie Burns will certainly be hoping to get a starting berth against his former club.