1 year ago
34
Ollie Lawrence scored Bath's ninth effort successful stoppage clip to headdress a 4th successive triumph and assistance assistance the nine up to eighth successful the Premiership table| Bath (21) 61 |
| Tries: Reid, Dunn 3, Obano 2, Cloete, Bailey, Lawrence Cons: Spencer 7, Bailey |
| Saracens (24) 29 |
| Tries: Segun, Hartley 2, Lewis, Vunipola Cons: Vunipola 2 |
Bath qualified for the Heineken Champions Cup with a thumping triumph implicit a much-changed Saracens connected the last time of the Premiership campaign.
Tom Dunn scored a hat-trick astatine The Rec arsenic the hosts ran successful 9 tries to assistance the Blue, Black and Whites up to eighth spot connected points difference.
League leaders Sarries were 24-21 up aft a see-saw archetypal fractional but Bath crossed six times aft the restart.
Ollie Lawrence's precocious people meant Bath pipped Bristol connected points difference.
Bath entered the past crippled of the run level connected 42 points with the Bears and knowing they had to out-score their West Country rivals - who were hosting Gloucester - by astatine slightest 9 points to pinch the last Champions Cup spot.
Sarries were already assured of a location play-off against Northampton and made 14 changes from their past outing - with Callum Hunter-Hill the sole subsister from their triumph implicit London Irish - arsenic England full-back Elliot Daly made his archetypal appearances since January pursuing a hamstring injury.
Bath took an aboriginal pb done a converted Miles Reid people earlier Rotimi Segun rapidly deed back, yet the sin-binning of Saracens prop Eroni Mawi appeared to unfastened the doorway for the hosts.
Dunn rounded disconnected a maul to agelong the pb but Olly Hartley ran successful 2 tries which were converted by Manu Vunipola to spot Saracens 19-14 successful front.
The pb changed hands doubly much earlier half-time arsenic archetypal Beno Obano muscled over, with Ben Spencer adding the extras to reconstruct Bath's vantage and past Ethan Lewis had the last connection for Sarries earlier the break.
Lawrence rounds disconnected second-half flourish
The Blue, Black and Whites enactment successful an altogether much implicit show aft the interruption to prehend power of the contention arsenic Obano crossed for the important 4th bonus-point effort and 2 much Dunn efforts stretched their pb to 18 points.
A good idiosyncratic people from Vunipola halted their momentum, yet converted tries from Chris Cloete and Orlando Bailey gave Bath renewed anticipation and a 56-29 pb with 7 minutes remaining.
However, it inactive looked similar Johann van Graan's men would stay ninth successful the array and person to settee for European Challenge Cup rugby adjacent play arsenic Bristol led Gloucester 36-14 successful the dying moments - giving the Bears eighth spot by conscionable 3 points.
But, with clip up and the timepiece successful the red, an attempted spot done by Vunipola was chopped retired successful midfield by Niall Annett and a speedy offload allowed Lawrence to tally successful from 30 metres and agelong Bath's winning borderline to 32 points.
That people meant a tense hold for the lucifer to extremity astatine Ashton Gate, and a precocious punishment effort for Gloucester confirmed that Bath would leapfrog Bristol into eighth spot and unafraid them top-tier European rugby successful 2023-24.
Bath caput of rugby Johann van Graan told BBC Radio Bristol:
"I americium truthful gladsome for the radical of Bath. To get that points quality successful that melodramatic manner is incredible.
"That is the play of athletics and I'm conscionable thankful.
"Saracens came retired and played and enactment america nether immense pressure, but what a 2nd fractional show from us. It was a spot of a ding-dong conflict and an unthinkable crippled of rugby.
"[Reaching the apical eight] is testament to the hard enactment from a batch of people, and we kept fighting. You tin spot the content is back."
Bath: Gallagher; Cokanasiga, Lawrence, Ojomoh, McConnochie; Bailey, Spencer (capt); Obano, Dunn, Stuart, McNally, Van Velze, Hill, Cloete, Reid.
Replacements: Annett, Schoeman, Rae, Attwood, Bayliss, Green, Francis, Joseph.
Saracens: Daly (co-capt); Segun, Hallett, Hartley, Harris; Vunipola, de Haas; Mawi, Lewis (co-capt), Judge, Wardell, Hunter-Hill, Michelow, Knight, Stonham.
Replacements: Adejimi, Hislop, Beaton, Pearce-Paul, Eke, Bracken, Morris, Elliott.
Sin-bin: Mawi (11).
Referee: Christophe Ridley.
Attendance: 14,509.
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