Gloucester demolish hapless Bath in a record-breaking fashion

Gloucester romped to their biggest Gallagher Premiership victory with a 64-0 demolition of hapless rivals Bath to move within a point of the play-off positions and arrest a mini-slump. The performance of Sam Underhill was perhaps the only positive for Bath, whose final match of the season at Worcester will probably determine who suffers the indignity of finishing at the bottom of the table.

Gloucester had secured the try bonus point they needed before half-time. Well though they played, they faced opponents who were passive in defence, shovelled slow ball predictably, struggled in the lineout and showed why they are the most indisciplined team in the Premiership.

They lost two players to the sin bin in the first 20 minutes. Prop Valeriy Morozov was penalised for a high tackle on Santiago Carreras after the full-back had come to ground having fielded a high kick.

Morozov had just returned to the field when centre Max Clark, who had earlier had a try ruled out because Underhill picked up the ball without getting back to his feet after flooring Mark Atkinson, was given ten minutes off for tripping scrum-half Charlie Chapman.

He did so in the build-up to Gloucester’s opening try. Louis Rees-Zammit and Matias Alemanno had earlier been tackled short of the line, but the pressure told when Chris Harris finished off a move started by Atkinson.

Bath then held out to the half-hour before two Rees-Zammit tries in five minutes, the first after the visitors lost a lineout in their 22 and the second following the wing’s quick thinking at a ruck and a feeble challenge by Joe Cokanasiga that summed up his side, saw the hosts pull further clear. With the Bath performance described as disgraceful by BT Sport pundit Ugo Monye, It was by now ludicrously easy for the home side.

Tries either side of half-time by Carreras and Ben Morgan extinguished any faint prospect that Bath could repeat what Northampton did to them last week and come to life as they were being buried. Tries from Atkinson, skipper Lewis Ludlow, replacement scrum-half Ben Meehan and prop Jamal Ford-Robinson followed before Alemanno rounded off the rout.