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'I think he is one of the best 10s in the world'
By PA
Bath boss Johann van Graan hailed his players’ “fantastic” mindset after they restored a six-point gap at the Gallagher Premiership summit.
Bath’s latest bonus-point victory came at the expense of west-country rivals Gloucester, with fly-half Finn Russell orchestrating a 42-26 victory.
“We haven’t played together as a group for eight weeks, but we stuck to our task,” Bath head of rugby Van Graan said.
“It was a very good second-half performance. There were some very good things today – our mindset was fantastic.”
Russell returned from Guinness Six Nations action with Scotland to score 17 points, including a try, as Bath dominated the second period after leading 28-26 at the interval.
“Finn was one of the best players on the pitch today. I am his coach at Bath and I think he is one of the best 10s in the world,” Van Graan added.
“It is all about the squad for Finn. You will see our players are happy, and he can come back in and perform. I don’t think he always gets the credits for small moments.”
Bath’s success means they moved closer towards securing a home play-off tie ahead of hosting Harlequins next Saturday.
There was also a try-scoring return to action for England flanker Sam Underhill, who suffered an ankle injury in early January and missed the entire Six Nations.
Underhill featured as a second-half substitute, helping his team close out a bonus-point victory secured through touchdowns from Russell, centre Max Ojomoh, flanker Guy Pepper, prop Will Stuart and his fellow front-row forward Thomas du Toit, before he crossed with eight minutes left.
Russell kicked all six conversions, and play-off contenders Gloucester had to be content with a losing bonus after failing to score in the second half.
Tomos Williams, Seb Blake, George Barton and Jack Clement scored their tries, while Santi Carreras added three conversions as Gloucester remained on the play-off fringe with six league games left.
Gloucester rugby director George Skivington said: “I thought Bath strangled us a bit in the second half and we didn’t really fire any shots.
“I thought Bath controlled the game in the second half. We made some pretty poor errors and Bath capitalised. We weren’t accurate enough, and if you don’t take them (chances) it is a tough day.
“Bath’s power-game today was top notch. In terms of what I have seen in the Premiership this season, I don’t think anyone has looked as powerful as that.
“Their power-game is really hard to live with. It just seems like they have got player after player coming at you.”
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Latest Comments
Credit to the Leinster development and to Cullen with the ‘grit’ of a Nienaber team starting to show. Deegan was immense, and Cian Healy was worth a little more in that front row than a 6.5 suggests. He controlled the pace of the scrums and communicated in conversation with the ref. Must have been a special win for him.
Gunne had a super debut. Its not an academy team, they have been blooded and are hardened from two previous SA tours and many Leinster caps between. Some inexperienced players but that wouldn’t count as the system makes that less relevant.
Leinster now have an experienced deep squad of 35-40 who each can come on and play without a big drop in standard. The team 2 years ago was academy in that sense. Not now.
All that said and as hard as Leinster made it, the Sharks should have been able to put them away. The reactions to some of the mistakes seemed to indicate that there is an ongoing issue of inaccuracy. Even at start of this season Sharks were blowing teams away and looked completely different.
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