Bath vs Leinster match report: George Ford grabs wheel to keep hosts motoring

Bath’s England fly-half George Ford sucked in a breath that might have deprived half of Somerset of oxygen as he prepared to take the decisive penalty in his club’s delayed start to this season’s European Champions Cup, but the 35-metre kick from wide on the right sailed over serenely, sealing a crucial win in a pool that has been described as the toughest in the competition’s history.

“You understand what type of kick it is to take a lead with three minutes to go, but you just focus on the process,” said Ford, whose team’s scheduled opening match away to the champions, Toulon, last weekend was called off after the Paris terror attacks. “You are in your own little bubble as a goal-kicker, you try to block everything out and just hit the ball like you do hundreds of times in training.”

By coming through his test of nerve and punishing Leinster’s pack for driving in and up early at a scrum, Ford also cast a pall over the Irish province’s prospects of adding a fourth title to their roll of honour. The boys in blue were hammered 33-6 by Wasps – who meet Toulon in Coventry on Sunday – last weekend, and have now lost the first two matches of a European campaign for the first time since 1996.

Next for Leinster are Toulon, home and away in December, while Bath will have their new signing David Denton to assist them, and maybe the England centre Jonathan Joseph fit again after his chest injury in their back-to-back fixtures with Wasps. The postponed Toulon match is likely to be played in January.

Leinster had won six of the seven previous games between these teams, including the quarter-final in Dublin last season, but it is a bleak scenario facing their head coach, Leo Cullen – captain for all three of the Irish province’s European Cup final wins in 2009, 2011 and 2012.

Bath no longer have Sam Burgess around but there remained a South Sydney Rabbitohs connection on the field in the rumbustious form of Ben Te’o. The Leinster centre was prominent in one first-half raid begun by a brilliant charge up the right touchline by Hayden Triggs and Sean Cronin straight from a line-out. But Te’o was well tracked by Bath’s big wing Matt Banahan, and the move ended with the home flanker Matt Garvey turning over Cian Healy after the tackle.

Bath’s attacking shape was compelling to watch and consistent in conception but open to error. They fancied themselves to go through multiple phases in their own half, often involving the excellently slippery Anthony Watson, here in his club position of full-back as opposed to the wing where England use him, before unleashing kicks downfield. The problem was a lack of precision handling combined with four of those punts falling too short, until one by Ford found touch in the Leinster 22 after 28 minutes.

This led to a line-out and a box-kick by Leinster’s scrum-half Isaac Boss that gave Bath a counterattack and very nearly a try for their captain, Stuart Hooper, only for the score to be rubbed out for an unfortunate flick forward off Banahan’s hand as Kyle Eastmond made the pass to Hooper.

In the same movement Healy was lucky not to be sent to the sin-bin for a no-arms tackle, and Bath led 6-3 at half-time, with a penalty and drop- goal by Ford in reply to Jonathan Sexton’s ninth-minute penalty.

Ford and Ollie Devoto maintained the same Bath exit strategy of play, play, kick in the second half, forcing Leinster mistakes and good positions for a home scrum that was a thing of monstrous beauty while Nick Aut-erac and Henry Thomas were doing the propping. The scoreline had reached 9-9 after a penalty by Ford in the 45th minute followed by two for Sexton, when Auterac and friends earned a penalty try converted by Ford in the 62nd minute – the reward, eventually, for a very risky decision by Bath to ignore a shot at goal.

Then Bath made front-row replacements and a chink of light shone for Leinster with a try by Josh van der Flier – the replacement back-rower took a lovely line off a ruck and blasted through Nikola Matawalu and Watson – and a conversion by Sexton for 16-16. However, he missed a long-range penalty, conceded by Bath’s scrum, soon after.

Bath wobbled further when Alafoti Faosiliva went to the sin-bin for a flailing-arm tackle on Dave Kearney, even though the Leinster wing appeared to slip before he was hit. Sexton’s penalty sent Leinster deep into the Bath half but, to the despair of Cullen, the old second-row, and anyone else Irish present, they got the line-out all wrong. James Tracy’s throw was simply lobbed into the hands of the waiting Hooper, with not a single white-shirted Leinster jumper in sight.

Bath: A Watson (T Homer, 76); S Rokoduguni, O Devoto (R Priestland, 71), K Eastmond, M Banahan; G Ford, C Cook (N Matawalu, 57); N Auterac (N Catt, 66), R Webber (R Batty, 54), H Thomas (M Lahiff, 65), S Hooper (capt), D Attwood, M Garvey, F Louw, L Houston (A Faosiliva, 54).

Leinster: I Nacewa (capt); F McFadden, B Te’o, L Fitzgerald, D Kearney (Z Kirchner, 79); J Sexton, I Boss (L McGrath, 68); C Healy (J McGrath, 51), S Cronin (J Tracy, 68), M Ross (M Moore, 51), D Toner, H Triggs (D Ryan, 53), R Ruddock, J Murphy (J van der Flier, 65), J Heaslip.

Referee: J Garcès (France).

Attendance: 13, 480.

Bath

Try: Penalty try

Con: Ford

Pens: Ford 3

Drop goal: Ford

Leinster

Try: Van der Flier

Con: Sexton

Pens: Sexton 3