Glawster attacked from the off and kept Bath on the back foot for most of the opening 10 minutes. Within two minutes James Bailey finished off a promising Glawster attack with a chip along his touchline and all Michael Stephenson could do was watch as the ball rolled in to touch just short of the Bath goal-line. Lee Mears' throw-in was caught by the wind and immediately highlighted how the elements would have its part to play in this match.

Glawster had the first opportunity to put points on the board, through a Mercier penalty on the edge of Bath's twenty-two, but again the ball was caught by the wind and the home crowd howled like the thwarting elements.

Bath finally made a foray out of their own half after almost 10 minutes with a Dunne kick for touch from a penalty (Malone was off the pitch getting treatment) and scored their opening try soon afterwards. Andy Beattie was fouled at the ensuing line-out to secure another penalty and then Beattie grabbed the ball from the next line-out ruck and ran through the defensive(sic) Cherry Red Sea (Moses-like) to score. Andy Dunne's third attempt to beat the wind with his conversion saw the ball heading straight between the posts only for it to be blown back towards him before it had passed the crossbar to leave the score at 0-5 to the visitors.

Bath took this score as a reminder that they needed to up the pace and both forwards and backs linked well as they played some great flowing rugby to really stretch the homeside defence. Stephenson, Higgins, Crockett, Maddock and Bory all had great games today and given all the criticism our backs have endured for so long it must be a real revelation for them to be allowed to play with such freedom. After taking a mauling with their tackling last week, these boys tackled with such ferocity against Glawster one wonders how we conceded five tries against London Irish.

But let's not heap all our praise on the backs. The forwards too had terrific games with Hudson and Short belying the absence of our two Colossuses, Grewcock and Borthwick. Everytime I see Hudson play I am impressed and it will be a great loss if he moves on to guarantee himself more starts in the first team. We have to face facts, this bloke is too good to be a bench player but given his age shouldn't we be looking to keep him rather than relying solely on a 33 year-old Grewcock who's form could dip or injury could occur next year? A tough decision for Hudson and the club to make.

Mercier clawed his team on to the score sheet after 34 minutes with a penalty but Lee Mears broke The Shed hearts six minutes later with a try just on half-time. On the 20th phase of a well disciplined and crafted Bath attack Nick Walshe darted for the line and, with a deft pop pass to his hooker, enabled Mears to dive over the line for his score. Oh how England could have done with something like this a few hours later! It was a superb piece of controlled play leading up to the score and showed how far Bath have travelled in the few weeks Brian Ashton has been in charge. A half time score of 3-12 to Bath will have had Dean Ryan fuming in the Glawster changing room ("Oi, where's Fergies hair drier?").

Ryan's mood would not have improved five minutes after the re-start as his charges conceded another penalty to make the score 3-15 but the introduction of Terry Fanolua added an injection of strength and pace into his somewhat static backline and given this was a blood and thunder derby it was not long before Glawster scored a couple of tries of their own through Bailey and Forster.

However it was a crucial Chris Malone drop goal, between these two Glawster tries, that won the match for Bath. To score with a drop goal in such anti-kicking conditions shows the remarkable kicking skills of the Aussie and no doubt this will be another example to pull out of the drawer in the future when the Mollyknockers come calling once again.

What a great game. A real intense derby but with exciting rugby as well. Well played Bath!

Right then, all off to Cardiff next week.

Referee: David Rose

And finally... go to the guestbook at the Kingsholm Chronicle, it makes such good reading

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Bath Poll