Bath 6 Cardiff Blues 14: Flanagan pulls plug on Bath's home run

It was just like the old days: Bath playing on a Recreation Ground swamp that was not so much beside the River Avon as in it. But in the old days, the team of Stuart Barnes and John Hall always out-alligatored the opposition. Times have changed. Last night, in the final Group B match of the EDF Energy Cup, a highly motivated Cardiff Blues side did for them with a late try from the open-side flanker Robin Sowden-Taylor, one of the men upon whom the new Wales coach, Warren Gatland, will be pinning his hopes.

Bath had not lost a home match for more than a year, but they were very definitely second best here. The one bleak aspect of the Blues' performance was Leicester's victory over Sale a result that knocked both of these sides out of the tournament.

The Blues crossed the Severn Bridge with a mix-and-match kind of side, an indication of their firm belief that Leicester, pretty much impregnable on home soil, would not be paragons of generosity when it came to knock-out qualification. Having released two of their top-drawer players, the flanker Martyn Williams and the centre Tom Shanklin, to the Barbarians for today's runaround with the Springboks at Twickenham, they also decided to omit the latest in the long recent line of Wales captains, Gethin Jenkins, from their starting line-up.

Bath seemed better off in the personnel department, despite the absence of an entire platoon of props, but they had their work cut out in the loose against an opposing pack brimming with close-quarter expertise something of a triumph of technique, given the desperate conditions.

Indeed, the West Countrymen did well to reach the interval on level terms, Olly Barkley answering Dai Flanagan's two penalties in kind. True, Bath might easily have claimed a try late in the first quarter when Butch James aimed a clever reverse-angled kick towards Joe Maddock as the wing slithered towards the left corner, but Maddock committed a barely detectable knock-on in the act of scoring.

But the Blues created an even better opportunity in the 34th minute, and Jason Spice, their scrum-half, must have felt as guilty as sin when he allowed the ball to slip from his grasp as he prepared to touch down unmolested after a long period of pressure.

There was more of the same in the second session, the Blues pack operating sufficiently comfortably to keep Bath pinned in their own territory. Both Barkley and Flanagan underclubbed penalty attempts from distance as the half unfolded but the kickers were presented with easier opportunities thereafter. Flanagan nailed his penalty, awarded against Peter Short for some injudicious shirt-pulling that resulted in a yellow card. Barkley missed his.

Shaun Berne's appearance in midfield gave Bath a semblance of a cutting edge, but no sooner had he threatened the Blues defence than Jamie Roberts set sail on the counter-attack to create the wrap-up score. It was a brilliant effort by the full-back, who sidestepped his way out of his own 22 before feeding Tom James in the danger area. From the ruck, Sowden-Taylor hit a blind-side line and scored unopposed. The game was already in stoppage time when Flanagan miscued the conversion, so there was no way back for the home side.

Bath: Penalties Barkley 2. Cardiff Blues: Try Sowden-Taylor; Penalties Flanagan 3.

Bath: N Abendanon; M Stephenson, T Cheeseman (S Berne, 74), O Barkley, J Maddock; A James, M Claassens (N Walshe, 82); L Ovens (P Ion, 45), P Dixon (L Mears, 51), L Ward, S Borthwick (capt), P Short (M Purdy, 79), J Faamatuainu, M Lipman (J Scaysbrook, 74), D Browne (C Goodman, 44).

Cardiff Blues: J Roberts; T Selley, G Thomas, D Hewitt, T James; D Flanagan, J Spice; J Yapp (G Jenkins, 58), T R Thomas (G Williams, 75), G Powell, D Jones, P Tito (S Morgan, 79), M Molitika (A Powell, 58), R Sowden-Taylor, X Rush (capt).

Referee: N Owens (Pontyberem).