Rugby Union: Webb's precision timing

Gloucester. . . 0

Bath. . . . . .20

THESE are troubled times at Kingsholm. The club from which a new defection is being announced almost every week find themselves in grave danger of relegation. Their home games are the ones that they must win if they are to survive.

Yesterday's defeat against Bath was predictable enough, but it was the manner of it which was so ominous. Once one of the most formidable club packs in the country, Gloucester had nothing to offer save doughty defence. They had scarcely an attacking move worthy of the name, their line-out was eclipsed and their scrummage subjected to a relentless buffeting.

Like England in Cardiff last week, Bath appeared to sense that their opponents were there for the plundering and they proceeded for most of the game to let them off the hook. Had they chosen to turn the screws, however, Gloucester's plight would have been very much worse.

When Andrew Reed, who is surely the find of the season, and Ben Clarke were not winning the line-outs - the majority of the early ones were on the left-hand side of the field, which admittedly favoured their stronger right arms - then Nigel Redman and John Hall were. Hall's competitiveness, which England might soon consider employing, occasionally turned to frustration when the casualness of some of his colleagues was at its most infuriating. Once he unleashed a verbal broadside towards Jeremy Guscott, who had earlier incurred the displeasure of Tony Swift, an idle bystander when Guscott cut inside with an enticing overlap to his right.

It was not a performance which Bath will carry proudly through the season. Rather it was a victory ground out by a side for whom there was no incentive to produce anything above the mediocre.

Perhaps Bath required the stimulus that Stuart Barnes so frequently brings to the side. But both he and Richard Hill were missing through injury. Hill's problem is his ankle and a persistent one it is. But Barnes, who had a calf-muscle strain, was probably thinking ahead to the Calcutta Cup. Quite possibly he had also taken the view that this was a game Bath could win without him, unthinkable in the days when Gloucester were a force in the land.

Their replacements, Mike Catt for Barnes and Ian Sanders for Hill were, in any case, more than competent, and it was from Sanders's cleverly placed kick after Catt's hanging one, that Swift scored Bath's only try. Moreover, Sanders had worked out Gloucester's codes at the scrums and was able to give valuable early warning of Gloucester's intentions to his back row.

For the rest it was left to the deadly accuracy of Jon Webb's boot. Five penalties from a variety of angles and distances, which made one wonder anew why he had refused the opportunity to go for goal in the closing minutes at the Arms Park last Saturday. Yesterday his precision and timing were impeccable and with every kick he struck a blow at Gloucester's waning confidence.

With a crowd well in excess of 10,000, their hospitality boxes fully subscribed and advertisement boards pasted to every available space, Kingsholm had all the trappings of opulence and success. But success is a word which can no longer be associated with Gloucester and both time and opportunities for improvement are fast running out.

Gloucester: M Roberts; T Smith, S Morris, D Caskie, D Morgan; D Cummins, M Hannaford; P Jones, D Kearsey, A Deacon, D Sims, R West, P Glanville, P Ashmead, I Smith (capt).

Bath: J Webb; T Swift, J Guscott, P de Glanville, A Adebayo; M Catt, I Sanders; D Hilton, G Dawe, V Ubogu, N Redman, A Reed, A Robinson (capt), B Clarke, J Hall.

Referee: E Morrison (RFU).

Scores: Swift (try, 7 min, 0-5); Webb (pen, 29 min, 0-8); Webb (pen, 40 min, 0-11); Webb (pen, 45 min, 0-14); Webb (pen, 49 min, 0-17); Webb (pen, 54 min, 0-20).