Bath break Exeter’s hearts with last-minute try to deny dramatic comeback | Prem Rugby

The champions needed something to lift them after their Christmas hangover. This might not have been how they chose it, but it is safe to say the desired effect was achieved, a try by Arthur Green in the last minute snatching victory from the jaws of, if not defeat, one of the more dispiriting draws a home team could ever have undergone.

It was their fifth try of the afternoon, but their first points since the 20th minute, after they had blown Exeter away with their reaction to the defeat here last weekend to Northampton. But their four tries in that opening quarter were scored with the Chiefs down to 14, after Campbell Ridl was shown a 20-minute red card in only the third minute for his aerial challenge on Henry Arundell.

Such is the competitiveness of this league, though, no side is ever safe with such a commanding early lead. Exeter scored four unanswered tries themselves, once restored to 15, setting up Bath’s final assault on their line at the end of which, 38 phases later, Green burrowed his way over. Job done but, boy, the hard way.

How unlikely the need for such heroics seemed an hour and a half earlier. Third in the table the Chiefs may have been, but there are not many sides who would not have suffered at the hands of Bath on their own turf the week after their humbling on the same pitch by something approximating to a Northampton second XV. The home team duly claimed the season’s fastest bonus point, four tries notched up in the first 20 minutes.

No one was calling last weekend’s Bath team less than full strength, but the champions boast such resources such a discussion would be all but redundant. In came players of the calibre of Santiago Carreras, Ted Hill, Guy Pepper and Cameron Redpath – the type other clubs might build a team around.

And then there were a couple of youngsters. Vilikesa Sela and Enoch Opoku-Gyamfi may not be on many people’s radars, the latter still a teenager – a 150kg teenager – but remember the names.

Beno Obano was luminary who did play last week but he, like pretty much everyone in the Bath pack, burst into this game as if he meant it. His was the first try, a pick-and-charge too many for Exeter, before Alfie Barbeary – another the envy of plenty of clubs – did much the same for the second.

Carreras finished in superb style after Louie Hennessey’s break for the third. Hennessey was on for Arundell, who was being checked after an aerial challenge on him by Ridl. Another youngster, he was shown a 20-minute red for his overexuberance. Bath had the bonus point before the 20 minutes was up, Ben Spencer putting Ollie Lawrence over after an attacking lineout.

No sooner, though, had Exeter been returned to a full complement than they were awarded their first penalty – and another six followed without reply. How the momentum can shift in these contests. The Chiefs sent a few of them to the corner, and from two they secured a foothold with two tries in the last 10 minutes of the half, by Joseph Dweba and Olly Woodburn. Henry Slade converted both, from each touchline.

Bath thought they had wrestled back control, when Spencer was in support after Redpath’s break in the 48th minute, but Opoku-Gyamfi, who was hobbling at the time, had blocked a defender. It was not until the final quarter that the game burst back into life – and it was Exeter who forced the issue.

They have a cluster of exciting young talents themselves, none more so than Greg Fisilau. He scored the Chiefs’ third with less than a quarter of an hour to go. Then it was the No 8’s break five minutes later that set up the attack from which came their first bonus point. Immanuel Feyi-Waboso needs less introduction. The whole Rec knew the outcome when he found himself out wide with one to beat at the end of a sustained attack. Slade’s conversion, from the touchline again, drew the teams level. And so the stage was set.