Bath Will Rue Round 7 In Final Reckoning

We might be just a third of the way through the Premiership season but we’ll look back at this weekend as a pivotal one in May when the race for the top four is reaching its conclusion.

Bath and Leicester were the two sides fighting it out for the all-important fourth place in the Premiership in Round 22 last season and the Tigers edged it as they won away at Worcester and Bath lost at Sale.

The same pair will be in the hunt again this time around and game management gives Tigers the edge on the evidence from this weekend as they controlled proceedings expertly in the North East, while Bath lost a West Country derby on their home turf that they definitely should’ve won.

They got the ball back from Gloucester on the edge of their own 22 with 50 seconds left on the clock and just booted it into touch instead of killing the clock by picking and going. They had an advantage and could’ve even taken the ball backwards for a few phases, so they lost the match due to poor game management.

I guarantee that Saracens would have won that game if they’d turned the ball over with 50 seconds to go and Exeter would have done as well. Winning when you’re not at your best and managing those small moments in games is the difference between the very top teams and those just below them.

Bath seemed to lack a bit of energy at times but there’s no doubt they should’ve won the game once they got ahead. And, with the Premiership being so close this campaign, it could end up being a huge turning point in the season, not just the match.

The margins are so fine nowadays and poor decision-making will prove costly in the final reckoning. Exeter and Saracens are nailed on to make the play-offs but everyone else is beating each other and Bath might look back it this derby in May and think not being able to see the game out was the reason they didn’t make the top four.

We’re a third of the way through the Premiership season now and teams are still jostling for position but the table normally begins to take shape now and that was a big three points dropped.

Leicester, on the other hand, controlled the game perfectly against Newcastle and it was great to see George Ford performing like that against Toby Flood, who was the reason he had to leave Leicester in a way in 2013 because Richard Cockerill preferred the more experienced man and wasn’t giving him enough game time.

Telusa Veainu was ridiculous again, scoring one and setting up another, and fellow Tongan Valentino Mapapalangi is quickly making a real name for himself as well.

The Tigers are the only team in the Premiership yet to notch up a try bonus point this season, which is surprising given the form of Jonny May and co, but they’ll be delighted with how they’re going at this stage of the campaign.

They’ve probably gone under the radar a little bit, given that they lost their first couple of games of the season at home to Bath and away at Northampton, but they’ve won five in a row and are the form team in the league.

They’ve got Sale and Worcester at home after the break for the Anglo-Welsh Cup, which are ideal fixtures for them at a time when they’ll be missing their England internationals, and look like top four material for sure.

Matt O’Connor has bedded in now and are getting back to the efficient Leicester style of play that they’re renowned for but with an extra element as well. They might not have set the world alight yet but the try bonus points will come in time and they look like a team to be reckoned with.

It’s too early to say that they can win the Premiership but they’ve reached the play-offs for 13 straight seasons and surely will do again. After that it’s about one-off games and we’ll see how they manage those big matches later in the season.

It was amazing to see Kingston Park sold out for the first time since Jonny Wilkinson was at the club in 2008, although I was a bit surprised by that fact as I thought it was packed every week when I was playing up there!

The Falcons faithful will be disappointed with the defeat to Leicester but that is a mark of how much the team has grown in the past 18 months.

Newcastle are really growing but it has to be a gradual process and their target this season will definitely be to finish in the top six. They haven’t spoken about the top four but some of us in the media have done because they’ve been doing so well and have got more ability in their squad.

They will see this campaign as another stepping stone where they want to improve on last season’s eighth-place finish and continue building towards being a top four side.

Just three points separate Leicester in third and Gloucester in eighth at the moment, and that’s with Wasps still down in ninth, so it’s going to be incredibly competitive for those top six spots but I think the Falcons have enough to make it if they continue building on what they’ve done so far.

Bath will expect to be fighting with Leicester for third and fourth rather than Newcastle for fifth and sixth and they will be kicking themselves. If they want to reach semi-finals and finals and win those games, it will come down to the finest of margins and they have to learn their lessons from this weekend.