Bath claim bonus-point victory at Newcastle Falcons
Last Updated: 10/04/15 11:08pm
Bath recorded a ferocious 29-19 bonus-point victory over Newcastle Falcons at Kingston Park to keep alive their Aviva Premiership title bid.
With Sam Burgess making his first Premiership start at blindside flanker, Bath went for it from the start and were rewarded with three first-half tries and a fourth early in the second period.
Fifteen points were rattled up in the first 16 minutes of the match as Bath, for whom England's George Ford delivered a fly-half masterclass, collected a brace of tries through Ollie Devoto and Semesa Rokoduguni.
Newcastle responded with a Sinoti Sinoti try but Anthony Watson's score on the stroke of half-time earned Bath a 19-13 lead at the interval, and then Matt Banahan went over in the 42nd minute to give the visitors their bonus point.
Rory Clegg slotted a penalty to give Newcastle an early lead but it did not last long, Ford putting a penalty in the corner which led to a scrum. Leroy Houston picked up and Ford fed Devoto for the big centre to score under the posts.
Ford converted and went to the corner again from another penalty soon after, which led to centre Jonathan Joseph's long cut-out pass sending Rokoduguni over in the corner.
The extra points were missed on that occasion and Clegg was able to cut the difference to six with a second penalty in the 23rd minute.
Rokoduguni had a try ruled out by the TMO for a knock-on and the Falcons capitalised with a superb try from Sinoti on the half hour. The winger looked to be going nowhere with a run from right to left but he brushed off four successive tackles with an aggressive run along the touchline to score in the corner.
Clegg's conversion put Newcastle 13-12 in front, but they could not hang on to the lead with Bath scoring their third try right on half time. Ford used a subtle delayed pass to allow full-back Watson to scythe through under the posts for another converted try.
Bath's bonus-point score came just two minutes after the break with Banahan sailing through a gap which was made by a dummy runner.
Ford converted but Newcastle replied with a Clegg penalty and Tom Catterick added another three-pointer after Carl Fearns was sin-binned to put the Falcons in losing bonus point range.
The majority of the 7,492 crowd were not happy with the decision to take the points but with just over 10 minutes left it looked the right one, until Ford kicked a 73rd-minute penalty to deny Newcastle their bonus.
