Cokanasiga scores as Bath hold on to edge out Saints
BATH forwards guru Toby Booth hailed a monster pack effort as his side’s set-piece superiority dashed Northampton hopes of a first away win.
On a hugely disappointing afternoon for England skipper Dylan Hartley, Bath overturned eight Saints lineouts and, with the impressive Dave Attwood leading the charge, the home side achieved scrum domination as well, forcing crucial penalties.
In awful conditions, Northampton might still have snatched a draw had Dan Biggar’s late conversion attempt not struck a post. However, that would have been a travesty for Bath, whose gritty performance belied talk of mutiny in the camp.
Booth purred: “If you look at our four games so far there has been plenty of forward dominance. We drove well against Harlequins, scrummed well against Gloucester and Bristol and today you saw both our lineout and scrum working together superbly.
“We’re ticking along nicely but there are areas for growth and we’ll push to get better and better.”
Bath threatened first when Semesa Rokoduguni’s thrilling run put Saints into retreat. The England wing then stripped Biggar of possession before narrowly failing to collect a Freddie Burns’ cross-kick.
Bath turned the screw at scrum-time, only for Burns to scuff the resultant penalty, but Sam Underhill’s turnover on Andy Symons put the home side back on attack.
Burns kicked out on the full, though, enabling Northampton to strike first in fortuitous circumstances when Piers Francis’ inside pass brushed Burns on its way to Ahsee Tuala. The ball fell kindly for Cobus Reinach to hack through and score, Biggar converting.
Bath won another scrum penalty and drew level when Reinach’s intended pass to Symons was brilliantly intercepted by Burns who rampaged home from 75 metres.
Attwood was at the heart of another massive shove as Bath earned a third setpiece victory. Burns pinned Saints back with an accurate punt to the corner, but blotted his copybook by missing a second penalty as the half ended 7-7.
Lineouts continued to be a huge problem for Northampton with Welsh beanpole Luke Charteris and the promising Tom Ellis ruling the skies.
However, Bath were doing little with this copious possession as a string of handling errors enabled Saints to hang on. Eventually, pressure told as Teimana Harrison failed to roll away and Burns struck the three-pointer.
Northampton’s lineout woes continued as two more throw-ins went astray and this time Bath cashed in as Francis was unable to deal with a Burns chip, enabling the fly-half to locate Elliott Stooke, whose sumptuous pass sent Joe Cokanasiga to the line.
Burns converted for 17-7, but Dan Biggar’s penalty kick-started a Saints revival before Alex Mitchell wriggled free and offloaded smartly for Tom Collins to score. Sadly for Biggar, his touchline conversion rattled an upright. bemoaned his side’s setpiece. He said: “Our lineout had been functioning well but today it didn’t operate the way it needed to. We still had plenty of chances to win but it didn’t allow us to build enough pressure.”
One crumb of comfort was a battling display from openside Lewis Ludlam. Boyd added: “He was really aggressive at the breakdown, carried well. He’s a good player.”
Bath coach Toby Booth allayed fears over Sam Underhill after the flanker appeared to take a head knock. “He lost power in the shoulder, it’s just a stinger.”