Bath v Exeter Chiefs: Five takeaways as Bomb Squad ‘turn the game’ after visitors ‘surge’ as hosts get their ‘detail right’
Dan du Preez (left) and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso in action during Bath's win over Exeter Chiefs in the 2026/27 PREM Rugby season.
Following Bath’s 40-34 win over the Exeter Chiefs at the Rec, here are our five key takeaways from the PREM Rugby round two clash.
The top line
Bath won this on detail, and, put simply, they got their detail right for longer than Exeter did with theirs.
For 40 minutes Bath did the basics superbly; JP Ferreira’s press defence took time away from Exeter, Bernard van der Linde kicked 14 times for 258 metres, almost half of Bath’s total, and Finn Russell, who has spent a decade persuading defenders to tackle the wrong man, sold an outrageous dummy from 22 metres to score under the posts and bring up the bonus point before the break.
That 26-10 half-time lead flattered them a little, since two of the tries came from Exeter errors, the most obvious being Cameron Redpath’s 60-metre interception of Harvey Skinner’s pass. Bath had their own lapses too; a Russell cross-kick dropped into Joe Cokanasiga’s arms in the second minute like a parcel with his name on it, and he still managed to return it to sender.
After the break Exeter scored 21 unanswered points in ten minutes to lead 31-26, but their discipline went as they tired and Bath’s bench took the game back. Bath took five points, while Exeter took two, a try bonus and a losing bonus from Skinner’s 42-metre penalty with the clock winding down.
Where Exeter’s possession went missing
Exeter want to keep the ball for long spells and wear sides down, and Bath’s coaches were open about how they’d planned for it. Johann van Graan said during the first half that Bath have to get off the line and take time and space away from Exeter, because the way PREM refereeing currently favours the attacking side means a team like Exeter will punish you if you let them settle on the ball.
The first try showed what that does, since Exeter went through 14 phases without getting over the gainline, and Skinner, pressed for time, threw the pass Redpath ran in. Bath’s second came after only three quick rucks from a scrum in their own half, with van der Linde dummying at the base and catching Tommy Wyatt and Greg Fisilau as they stepped away from their pillar positions.
Possession finished almost level at 51% to 49%, but a bigger share of Bath’s ball came inside the Exeter 22, 14 per cent of their possession against Exeter’s nine in Bath’s. Bath also had fewer rucks, 103 to 109, which fits the round-one pattern in which the side with fewer rucks, one of our Six Measures, won every game.
Exeter’s ten-minute surge after the break was the one spell where their possession told; they had almost all of the ball, and Kane James’s carry off a five-metre lineout folded Bath’s defence inwards for Josh Iosefa-Scott to drive over. That spell cost them a lot of energy, and the penalties flowed in the final quarter as they tired. Their goal-kicking left seven points behind with two missed conversions and a penalty off the post, they won only 80% of their own lineouts against Bath’s perfect return, and they missed 37 tackles to Bath’s 26. James was their best forward, making 15 tackles and winning three of Exeter’s seven turnovers, more than anyone else on the pitch.
Bath’s bomb squad wins it back
Van Graan’s changes around the hour turned the game. When Bath brought on a new front-row, Ted Hill and Max Ojomoh, they were 31-26 down, and the line speed that had suffocated Exeter in the first-half had disappeared. Ojomoh changed the tempo almost as soon as he arrived, and his sharp passing and big runs gave Bath’s attack the speed and direction it had lost after the break.
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Dan Frost, who played 57 times for Exeter between 2022 and 2025, was involved straight away against his old club too, and Bath began to get through defenders who were tiring quickly. They might have gone ahead sooner had Redpath, who’d shown everyone the way with his interception, not lost the path entirely after Ojomoh had put him through with only the line to beat.
The penalty try came from that pressure when Bath tapped a five-metre penalty quickly, the ball went wide, and Varney knocked down the pass meant for Cokanasiga, a reversal of last season’s semi-final, when it was Cokanasiga who was sent to the bin for the same offence. With Exeter down to 14, Hill finished it, carrying through contact from seven metres to make it 40-31; he beat three defenders off the bench, as many as Russell, and his power turned a two-point lead into a two-score one.
Exeter had spent their energy keeping the ball through that surge, and the fresh Bath legs running at tired forwards drew the penalties that decided the last 20 minutes.
Feyi-Waboso shows star quality
For the first-half, Feyi-Waboso was Exeter’s only real outlet, and he stepped two or three defenders in a space the size of a phone box to set up Varney’s try. Rob Baxter said Exeter needed to get the ball into his hands, and eight minutes after the restart, they did. Skinner’s pass found him on the edge, where Bath’s press had narrowed, and he beat Ollie Lawrence on the outside to run in from 40 metres. His second came after Will Butt, who had lost the ball in contact twice in the first-half, broke between Guy Pepper and Tom Dunn and offloaded for him to finish.
What sets the England wing apart is his ability to beat the first defender and force a scramble, and the numbers bear it out; he beat eight defenders, made three clean breaks and ran 133 metres, more than twice as far as anyone else on the pitch. Henry Slade had some lovely touches, but he didn’t take defenders with him, so his passes created little space outside. Feyi-Waboso dropped one late high ball, his first error of the night, and that was the only blemish on a performance that made him Player of the Match from the losing side.
Stuart leads Bath’s England case
Will Stuart is making some return from injury, with another big display. He picked his moment at the scrum and, when he went for it, drove up and in through Ethan Burger, the loosehead whose try won last season’s semi-final. Bath won every scrum on their own put-in, whilst Exeter won only three quarters of theirs, and Stuart made 19 tackles, the most in the game. England have been short of a second fit, world-class tighthead to back up or challenge Joe Heyes; but on this evidence, Stuart is that player again.
Ewan Richards had a superb game at blindside. Born in Yeovil, and properly Test-match big, he played in England’s Under-20 Grand Slam side in 2021, and Eddie Jones, who had a sharp eye for young forwards, spotted him early, calling him into a senior England training camp as a 19-year-old in 2022. He’s still uncapped, but his work in the dark corners, his hits and his lineout calling make a strong case, and it was his flick back inside to Van der Linde that led to Dan du Preez’s try.
Pepper, in for the injured Sam Underhill, took a ten-metre run-up to flatten Skinner on half-way in a way Underhill would have admired, but he went inside and missed Butt for Feyi-Waboso’s second try. Lawrence’s one-handed offload sent Tom de Glanville away in the first half, and Feyi-Waboso beat Lawrence on the outside for the first of his tries.
READ MORE: PREM Rugby, round two: Predictions, teams, kick-off times, how to watch and referee appointments