Bath returned to second in the table, if only temporarily, with one of the ugliest victories their supporters have witnessed for a few seasons. After three successive defeats, it was considered to be all about the result which was just as well because, as performances go, this was, 27 penalties and all, joyless.
As their next match is London Welsh away and with some of their rivals for a place in the top four playing each other in the next couple of rounds, Bath will be close to where they were when the Six Nations started and they lost six players to the England and Wales squads. The question will be whether they are able to regain the momentum that saw them challenge Northampton at the top.
Four Tom Homer penalties were enough to see off Sale, who had started the night in seventh place. They had Danny Cipriani back at fly-half after he had been a redundant replacement for England at Dublin last weekend, but they struggled up front throughout, even after the England prop Henry Thomas left the field after 16 minutes with a shoulder injury, and lacked a platform.
They were unfortunate that a strong wind blew up during the interval and they found themselves playing into it. They squandered an early chance when a driving maul was repelled and Johnny Leota was blown for a blatant obstruction close to the Bath line and when the home side then brought on Micky Young at scrum-half, they exerted the necessary control, playing for position and using the boot of Homer to increase their lead and ultimately deny the Sharks a bonus point.
Homer landed four penalties out of seven. In contrast, Cipriani had only two kicks at goal. For the first, after 24 minutes when his side trailed 3-0, he slipped as he was about to make contact with the ball and landed on his backside, much to the merriment of the crowd. They had little else to smile about until the final whistle with space at a premium, the referee Wayne Barnes rarely having his whistle far from his mouth.
Cipriani’s slip was followed by the Sale full-back Mike Haley spilling the restart in his own half. From the resulting scrum Kane Palma-Newport, Thomas’s replacement and Bath’s third-choice tight-head prop, forced his opposite man Eifion Lewis-Roberts up and out for Homer to make it 6-0. Cipriani halved Sale’s deficit shortly after Matt Garvey had made a head-high tackle and finished the scoring in a first half of very little note.
It was another frustrating evening for Sam Burgess, making his fourth consecutive start at outside-centre in the absence of Jonathan Joseph. He had a few touches in the opening quarter, mainly at first receiver, but was heavily marked and was never put in space. He was taken off just before the hour and he continues to learn that rugby union is markedly different to league, chess compared to draughts, less dynamic and more nuanced.
His last contribution was to win a penalty for his side, who were then 9-3 ahead. Homer missed it but sealed victory on 64 minutes after Sale were again penalised at a scrum. The match ended with Bath on the Sharks’ line after a defensive mix-up, but it was a night when neither side looked like scoring a try, confirming the observation made this week by the New Zealand head coach, Steve Hansen, that the sport was increasingly becoming one not worth seeing and was in need of a stimulus provided by a law change or application of ones that already exist.
“We lacked a cutting edge, but we got the win we needed and had a bit of luck with the wind,” said the Bath head coach, Mike Ford. “We are back on the horse after a run of defeats and we have five matches left to stay in the top four. We were guilty before our recent run of looking at the league table and taking too much notice of it, but that will not happen again. The next time we view it will be at the end of the season and all we are thinking about now is our next game.”
Ford admitted that Bath had taken time to cope with the loss of so many players to international duty, something their rivals at the top have become used to over the years. The presence of George Ford and Joseph on the touchline highlighted what Bath were missing, but Sale, despite winning here on two of their previous three visits, never looked like making it three.
“We were tired,” said the Sale director of rugby, Steve Diamond. “We have a smaller squad than other clubs because of our resources and the season has caught up with the players who will now have a week off. I think that is it for us now as far as a top four spot is concerned, but we are still in contention for a place in the Champions Cup and will be going all out for that.
Bath Homer (Arscott, 78); Rokoduguni, Burgess (Banahan, 58), Eastmond, Woodburn; Devoto, Cook (Young, 47); Auterac (Lahiff, 66), Webber (Batty, 55), Thomas (Palma-Newport, 16), Hooper (capt), Day, Garvey (Mercer, 71), Louw, Fearns (Fa’osiliva, 64).
Pens Homer 4
Sale Haley; Arscott, Leota, Tuitupou, Cueto (Brady, 72); Cipriani, Cusiter (Cliff, 64); Lewis-Roberts (Harrison, 59), Taylor, Cobilas, Mills (Beaumont, 61), Hines, Braid (capt; Ioane, 59), Seymour, Lund.
Pen Cipriani.
Referee W Barnes. Attendance 12,621.
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