The last home game of the season seems to have crept upon us extremely quickly, and suddenly we were faced with the prospect of saying goodbye to not only star foreign players such as Butch James and Luke Watson but the club stalwart, Bath legend and all round amazing man Danny Grewcock. It wouldn’t be his style for any analysis of the game to focus on him but it wouldn’t be MY style to miss out on thanking him for being such an amazing servant of the club over the years. We will miss him greatly and the moniker “legend”, so often overused, absolutely applies to him. (And he had a great game, too).

The first minute of the first half rather summed up how the game was to play out; after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, Newcastle were trapped in Bath’s 22 and unable to break out. Bath’s defence held until Newcastle knocked the ball on, leading to a Bath scrum. This was won, albeit with some difficulty by Bath, and the attack went into touch.

Tom Biggs in possession

Newcastle seemed riddled with errors and certainly extremely nervy; understandable for a team flirting quite so dangerously with relegation, but the desire the undoubtedly felt to perform and win was not allowed to flourish into good play, and this was partly down to Bath’s excellent attack.

A Newcastle line-out on the halfway line was called as not straight, and then after a Bath scrum, the visitors were penalised at the ruck, giving Butch James in his last game the chance to kick three points. He duly did so, and gave Bath an early lead.

The Newcastle scrum was certainly powerful, and it took effort from the Bath forwards to retain the ball. Quick Bath hands sent the ball to the touch line and Tom Biggs chipped the ball forward to set up a line-out. The ruck which resulted saw Newcastle’s defence sucked in, to leave a two or three man overlap for Bath to utilise. Sam Vesty ran through the gap to score an easy try, which was converted by James.

Butch James passes the ball

A poor clearance kick from Newcastle fell into the waiting arms of Matt Banahan. The pass went to Biggs waiting on the wing, but Wayne Barnes called it as a forward pass. At this stage, it was announced to everyone at the ground that Leeds were beating Northampton, opening up the possibility of Bath’s appearance in the play-offs.

The news perhaps spurred Bath on; a break from Banahan saw the ball passed quickly through willing Bath hands up to the try-line, where Ignacio Fernandez Lobbe smashed through a gap in the Falcons’ defence and scored a try. The conversion was missed but Bath were still in a good position, leading by 15 points to nil.

The next sustained attack from Bath moved the ball slowly but steadily up the pitch but a chip from James fell into the hands of Newcastle. The next attack from Newcastle was weak and a pass was slung straight into touch. Bath now had all of the possession and every pass and movement gained the home tram ground.

Matt Banahan on the charge

Soon Bath were running the ball close to the touch-line and the always impressive Matt Carraro dashed through a gap to score Bath’s third try. With the conversion from James, the score was 22-0. The next passage of play was actually very messy, from both sides, but Newcastle were once again masters of their own downfall when they left a huge gap for Banahan to stroll through for the fourth try and bonus point. The conversion from James (who I thought had a great game on his last appearance) took the score to 29-0, and it remained like that at half time.

Newcastle had clearly been given a good talking to at half time, for they came out with much more energy and purpose. They immediately bashed their way to the Bath 22 for I think was the first time in the match, and after a little chip over the defence into acres of space, Alex Tait ran through to score a try. The conversion was missed and with the score at 29-5, the visitors were still a long way adrift.

At this point, although Bath were winning with a bonus point, the fact that Northampton were slowly and steadily making up their points deficit against Leeds, and were looking good for the win which would take Bath away from the play-off spots, was filtering through the crowd.

Nathan Catt faces off against Chris Pilgrim

James took the sensible decision to kick three points after Newcastle were penalised at a ruck. Next came a very good five minutes from Bath, despite some odd decisions from Wayne Barnes. However, soon the Falcons’ had kicked their way downfield and had a line-out five metres from the Bath line. A good take in the line-out set up an exciting move across to the other side of the pitch, where the Bath defence rather gave up and let in Luke Fielding for Newcastle’s second try.

Bath looked to have struck back fairly quickly through some good work from the pack but after Lee Mears scrambled his way across the line, Wayne Barnes said that he had been held, so no try was scored. Bath put some points on the board quickly through a James penalty, and then Guy Mercer sucked in the Newcastle defence near to the left hand touch line, freeing up space for Jacques Boussuge, who showed his pace and sprinted up the line and scored Bath’s fifth try. The final score was 42-12.

It was a good way to say goodbye to all of the players and staff who are now leaving the club and a promising glimpse into the future, with Mercer, Nathan Catt and Kane Palma-Newport all impressing.

The man of the match was of course Danny Grewcock and no-one deserved it more.

Danny Grewcock gets a big cheer from the terracing

Photos by Patrick Khachfe | Onside Images