When Joe Maddock ran in a try for Bath after five minutes, following excellent fast attacking rugby by the visitors, it looked at though the Dragons would struggle to repeat the close game at The Rec. However Bath will think themselves lucky to have walked away from Rodney Parade topping their group when things could have been so very different.

As soon as the Dragons started to play with a bit of fire in their bellies, from the restart following Bath's score, they not only enjoyed a a few good attacking opportunities of their own but perhaps more importantly they disrupted Bath's game. Newport's ferocious tackling took the pace out of Bath's game to such an extent the West Countrymen looked too ponderous too often to be able to play their energetic style so important to scoring tries.

At the end of the game the Dragons had made double the tackles of their visitors and the Bath players will probably ache more than usual when they wake up tomorrow.

Picture courtesy Empics

Despite peppering the home try-line with many phases of attacking play, it took until 26 minutes before Bath extended their score. This came after No.8, Webb, was penalised for entering a ruck from the side. Butch James slotted home the testing kick in very windy conditions to make the score 0-8. Three minutes later Bath were awarded another kickable penalty but they tried a quick run at the try-line and failed to stretch their lead to 11 points. In a game that would be tight this should always be a goal kick and this poor decision making could have been very costly.

At the end of the first half Stuart Hooper followed Dragons' skipper, Luke Charteris, to the bin for appearing to trip Wayne Evans as he ran from the back of a ruck. Three minutes into the second half saw Daniel Browne join his colleague after clipping Wayne Evans around the neck with a late tackle: this meant Bath were down to 13 men. I don't think either incidents were intentional, more to do with big men struggling to grab a nimble scrum half.

Within two minutes of Brownes's dismissal the Dragons scored their first try. An excellent kick deep in to Bath's twenty-two by Arlidge stood up nicely for Fussell to score.

By now the Dragons had their tails up and almost scored again a few minutes later but were pulled back for a forward pass by Ashley Smith just when it looked as though he had slipped the Bath defence. Bath were getting a good working over in the tight play and too often players found themselves isolated and losing possession when running at defenders.

Picture courtesy Empics

On the hour Newport took the lead when they chipped in to the Bath twenty-two putting Joe Maddock on the back foot. The Bath winger was caught but managed to secure the ball for Claassens. Unfortunately the receiver from Claassens was not Butch James or Nick Abendanon but James Scaysbrook. The Bath flanker was caught as he tried to shift the ball, it flew wide and Fussell grabbed his opportunity to score.

There was a suggestion that the ball was knocked forward out of Scaysbrook's hand before Fussell scored, and I was surprised the referee didn't ask the TV official (I assume there was one) to check the validity of the try. At 12-8 things weren't looking good for Bath and no doubt there were a few smiles in France.

However cometh the hour and all that... up steps skipper Alex Crockett to set up Bath's winning score. Breaking through Newport defence with an excellent line that took four home players out of the game, the Bath centre slipped the ball to Daniel Browne who passed the ball to try scorer Hooper, just as he was tackled short of the line. A great sigh of relief in all homes sporting the Blue, Black and White as Hooper dived down behind the posts!

Newport hit back with more attacking moves but Bath held out to set up next week's exciting encounter.

Picture courtesy Empics

Despite being on the bench at the start, Shontayne Hape replaced Fuimaono-Sapolu very early in the game and found himself in the thick of Bath's attacking moves far more than in previous games. Whilst Hape still hesitates slightly when taking the ball, I think he is only a good break away from gathering the confidence to demonstrate the skill he clearly has. On several occasions he slipped the first defender and it only needs a small gap to open and he'll be through.

In every game various Bath players seem able to deliver moments of magic and in this one it was a marvellous backhanded flip of the ball by Matt Stevens as he was being tackled.

Crockett was rightly named MOTM by Stuart Barnes.

Referee: George Clancy

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