Rugby Union: Irish errors help Bath to plug the gaps

Bath 23 London Irish 20

EUROPE'S CHAMPION club have always been a quick side, but they are now being forced to run ever faster just to stand still. Once upon a time, when Bath were winning everything on offer with their eyes tight shut, their dodgy patches were calculated in microseconds. Now they are measured in entire halves of matches. They still win more than they lose, of course, but the law of diminishing returns is beginning to cast its shadow.

The West Country aristocrats will not want to hear this, but their rise to the top of the Premiership heap was something of a joke. Not only are they struggling at scrum-half - a well-documented affliction - but they are too hit and miss at stand-off and utterly bereft of an open-side flanker capable of emulating a Roger Spurrell, an Andy Robinson or a Steve Ojomoh. Had it not been for the spendthrift generosity of London Irish, they would have finished a distant second at the Recreation Ground on Saturday.

Jon Preston, the versatile All Black half-back, will make a New Zealand- sized impact when he arrives from Wellington next month and when Dan Lyle, the American No 8, finally links up with Ben Sturnham from the back row, Bath will once again possess forwards with flair and equipped to scale the heights. But you have to wonder whether time is passing them by. Nothing lasts for ever and Bath have one foot in the past tense.

Dick Best, the London Irish coach, made quite a fist of masking his disappointment at the weekend. "No one makes the jump from the relegation zone to knocking off the European champions in their own backyard in one leap," he said, determined to deflect attention from the profligacy of his own players. "These things develop stage by stage. We've emerged from the basement, but we don't quite believe in ourselves at the moment. It's a week by week process."

Mmmm. What Best, a hard nut, really wanted to say was: "Jesus, how the hell did we lose that one?" And he would have been perfectly justified in asking that question. The Exiles fairly murdered their hosts in the first 40, responding to Sturnham's opening thrust by scoring excellent tries through Conor O'Shea and Niall Woods on 17 and 25 minutes and then stretching their lead to double figures with a Woods penalty eight minutes into the second period. They might have scored four more tries before the break, but were held up over the line on three occasions and denied by a forward pass decision of the most marginal proportions.

At which point, they lost the plot; their best player, the remarkable South African centre Brendan Venter, poured body and soul into holding things together but, try as he might, the odd error insisted on creeping in. And it is a well-known fact that opposition mistakes at the Recreation Ground seldom go unpunished.

When Richard Kirke conceded possession to Kevin Yates at a 51st- minute breakdown, Bath worked Iain Balshaw over in the opposite corner before the Irish realised that peril was afoot. Mike Catt, a sketchy performer on the day, converted and added a brace of penalties before the outstanding Sturnham sold Rob Gallacher a sucker-punch dummy and stampeded over from fully 20 metres.

It was game, set and match, despite Woods' late strike at the left corner flag. "Perhaps it was my half-time team talk that did it," said Best ruefully. Probably not. Under the former England coach, these particular poor cousins are looking richer by the minute.

Bath: Tries Sturnham 2, Balshaw; Conversion Catt; Penalties Catt 2. London Irish: Tries Woods 2, O'Shea; Conversion Woods; Penalty Woods.

Bath: M Perry; J Fallon (P de Glanville, 52), K Maggs, J Guscott, I Balshaw; M Catt, S Hatley; K Yates, A Long, J Mallett (V Ubogu, 41), M Haag, B Sturnham, R Webster (capt, D Jones, 52), E Peters (R Earnshaw, 16), N Thomas.

London Irish: C O'Shea (capt); J Bishop, R Todd (N Burrows, 75), B Venter, N Woods; M Jones (J Brown, 67), K Campbell; M Worsley (M Howe, 75), R Kirke, R Hardwick (K Fullman, 55), N Harvey (M Bird, 71), K Spicer (M Jarvis, 41), R Gallacher, K Dawson.

Referee: C Rees (London).