Injury to Fleck sours Bath's Kingsholm triumph

Bath will be without Robbie Fleck until next March after the former Springbok centre dislocated his left ankle and fractured his fibula in the same leg in his club's 20-14 Zurich Premiership victory against Gloucester at Kingsholm.

"It is a serious injury, but not as bad as we first thought," explained Bath's head coach, John Connolly. "He was operated on; he should be out for around 16 weeks. Robbie is determined to get back and we are all relieved that the injury is not as bad as initially feared."

The injury tempered Bath joy at becoming the first team for more than two years to win at "fortress" Kingsholm, because Fleck is added to an already long list of backs unavailable to Connolly either through World Cup calls or because of injury.

But Connolly, who last week signed two loan players to shore up the club's backs contingent, said he would not be panicked into taking on any more players just yet, especially in the light of the results in the quarter-finals of the World Cup at the weekend.

Scotland's and Ireland's losses are Bath gains with the wing Simon Danielli (Scotland) and the Ireland centre Kevin Maggs returning home.

Bath had travelled to Kingsholm with no fewer than 11 of their backs unavailable to them through World Cup calls and injuries. Thankfully, Ollie Barkley was on form with boot and brain, opening the scoring with the first of his two penalties then adding a try before sparking the move which led to their second touchdown. He converted both.

Gloucester's points all came in the first half after which they rather lost touch with their opponents. Rotherham are in danger of losing touch with the whole of the Zurich Premiership after their 56-10 rout at Newcastle yesterday.

The Titans were on the wrong end of a seven-try blitz, with the Falcons winger Tom May scoring his second hat-trick of the season.

Saracens suffered their second successive home defeat, losing 34-31 to London Irish. Barry Everitt landed five penalties and converted two of their three tries. The first was scored by Ryan Strudwick, who then turned villain by being sin-binned after a challenge on Andy Goode that resulted in the Saracens fly-half being carried off on a stretcher and having eight stitches inserted into his top lip.

That was in the 33rd minute, by which time Goode had completed a try, two conversions, a penalty and a drop goal.

As it was the Exiles shot up to third, slotting in behind Harlequins who, 24 hours earlier had hammered Northampton by a humiliating 43-21, which included five tries and a concomitant bonus point.

Sale recorded their first win at their new ground, Edgeley Park, when they beat Leeds Tykes 37-21, while Leicester ended their losing streak with a 32-22 win over Wasps at Welford Road. The young hooker Jim Richards and rugby league convert Neil Baxter both scored tries on their full debuts.