Bath returned to domestic rugby after their short European winning sojourn against Leinster and Bourgoin to face a full strength London Irish without their England international players, Grewcock, Barkley, Borthwick, Mears and Stevens and what a difference their absence made. Irishman Andy Dunne also came in for an injured Chris Malone, who failed to recover from last week's thigh injury, and Dunne had what must be described as an "interesting" game. 

The Bath pack really missed the current form of the Borthwick, Grewcock, Mears triangle in the line-out with Dixon, Hudson and Fidler losing more ball than we would normally expect to see. Too often this situation placed Bath under pressure. The afternoon's performance was summed up as Bath had fought hard to get to within five yards of the Irish line only for their line-out to fail: turnover ball once again.

Andy Dunne had an early opportunity to give Bath the lead after just four minutes, following an Irish chaser being in front of his box kicker, however Dunne didn't quite have Olly Barkley's beef to thump the ball 47 yards to the posts. He had a further, much easier, opportunity after 10 minutes but again missed. Former Bath hero, Mike Catt, was keen to show his previous employers what they are missing and it wasn't to be too long before Catty was enjoying himself with a score as his team took Bath apart.

London Irish took the lead after 14 minutes after Riki Flutey did a Chris Malone and dropped a goal from the half-way line. Catt gave away a penalty from the restart by handling on the ground and Bath, perhaps feeling more confident with their line-out than with Dunne's kicking, opted for touch. A further Bath penalty came after the line-out and this time Dunne managed to break his duck, making the score 3-3. At this stage Bath looked in control of their game but that was soon to change.

Despite Bath just shading possession throughout the first quarter, Irish scored the opening try of the game after a chip kick into the Bath twenty-two beat Lee Best and Scott Staniforth fell on the ball to grab the five points. Flutey missed the conversion to keep the score 8-3 after 23 minutes. Two minutes later Bath conceded a second try after Feaunati charged down a Mike Catt drop goal attempt but Joe Maddock couldn't clear the ball and the man with the paws leapt on it to score an opportunistic try. Flutey missed his kick yet again so the score remained at 13-3.

Having conceded two tries in quick succession Bath were clearly struggling and their cause was not helped when Andy Dunne was penalised and sin-binned after 34 minutes for scrapping with Bob Casey in front of the Bath posts: the easy penalty took the score to 16-3. So no Barkley, no Malone and then no Dunne saw Ryan Davis moved to the fly-half position for the last 10 minutes of the half. Flutey had an opportunity to extend the lead with the last kick of the first half but pulled the ball wide which meant Bath didn't suffer for Dunne's indiscretion.

Almost from the second half restart Bath clawed back three points by means of a Dunne penalty to take the score to 16-6 but it was almost all one-way Irish traffic after that. Bath almost got caught out after 10 minutes when the visitors lost yet another line-out and Horak kicked the ball up-field and made Lee Best have to work hard to prevent a try from being scored. The Bath defence then had to draw on all their fitness training to stop the home side from scoring a third try and they prevented wave after wave of attackers but eventually the pressure told and Flutey dived in to score. A successful conversion took the score to 23-6.

Irish grabbed their fourth try and winning bonus point from a late score from Phil Murphy. Flutey kicked his conversion to make this a 30-6 rout. Another couple of Irish penalties took the score to 36-6 and a very late Michael Lipman try took the final score to 36-13.

What can one say? We were well beaten and the Bath coaches will be concerned that the same doesn't happen next week against an in-form Saracens.

London Irish: Horak, Staniforth, Penney, Catt, Armitage, Flutey, Hodgson, Hatley, Flavin, Rautembach, Casey, Kennedy, Roche, Danaher, Murphy.
Replacements: Coetzee, Skuse, Strudwick, Gustard, Bishop, Willis, Everitt.

Bath: Best, Maddock, Higgins, Davis, Welsh, Dunne, Walshe, Barnes, Dixon, Bell, Hudson, Fidler, Beattie, Scaysbrook, Fea'unati.
Replacements: Hawkins, Loader, Delve, Lipman, Williams, Abendanon, Davey.

Referee: Rob Debney (Leicestershire)

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