Bath v Lyon: Five takeaways as ‘French-style’ Ben Spencer ‘magnificently executes’ Johann van Graan’s ‘detailed game plan’
Bath captain Ben Spencer leads Challenge Cup final celebrations, and head coach Johann van Graan.
Following a 37-12 triumph for Bath over Lyon, here are our five takeaways from the Challenge Cup final at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on Friday.
The top line
Bath took one more leap towards their dream of the treble of the Premiership, the Premiership Rugby Cup and of course, the EPCR Challenge Cup, as they disposed of a lacklustre Lyon in a brilliant display of controlled and accurate rugby and an absolutely career-defining personal performance from skipper Ben Spencer.
Tries from Tom Dunn, Max Ojomoh, Beno Obano and the brilliant Spencer didn’t really demonstrate the dominance of the Bath aces as their aerial and kicking game simply overpowered the Lyon defence and set up a platform for the West Country side to enjoy themselves in a fine display.
However, the Challenge Cup champions can count themselves mighty lucky to have finished the match with 15 players on the pitch as first-half indiscipline might have seen a completely different outcome on any other day, with Bath down to 13 just before half-time.
Lyon struggled for shape, they struggled for points but most of all they struggled to compete with the variety and accuracy of Finn Russell and Spencer at nine and 10.
It leaves Johann van Graan’s men with two from three and just two more hurdles in front of them – the play-offs and then, with fortune, the Premiership final, to write their names in the rugby history books, and on their showing in this game, it’ll take a massive effort to stop them.
Early exchanges
It looked as if Lyon had really turned up as the teams kicked off with Dylan Cretin causing all sorts of issues in the air for Bath. The French team drew first blood with Cretin grabbing his third lineout in three minutes, and from the ensuing maul, Leo Berdeu drifted left to create a hole for Lyon’s outstanding player, Ethan Dumortier, to crash through.
But Bath held off the early power of Lyon and a few moments later, Will Butt almost scored following a wonderful line off Ojomoh’s pop pass but was held up just short after a brilliant 30m solo run.
However, Bath never strays far from its own DNA and it was fitting that for all the tomfoolery in the backs, the English side’s first try came from the man that so personifies their club and the Bath brand, Tom Dunn, as the rumbustious hooker crashed over form short range.
Bath’s match performance was best summed up as a slow burner, but the efforts of their less celebrated players like Miles Reid, who had an absolute stormer, Charlie Ewels, and Joe Cokanasiga showed just how deep this Bath squad goes.
As Underhill and Reid dominated the collision and breakdown, so Lyon’s early excellence fell down by the wayside as Bath simply went back to their focus of simplicity and accuracy in all facets of a great performance.
Spencer commanding
Yet again the Bath half-backs delivered an exquisite performance of control and territorial ownership and at the centre of the performance was the brilliant Spencer.
As noted in previous Planet Rugby columns, the pairing of Spencer and Finn Russell allow Bath to launch plays off both nine and 10, something very rare in modern top-flight rugby, where a team usually favours launching their phase plays off one or the other half-back but rarely either.
Spencer had one of his finest games in the Bath shirt. His kicking, whether box or in clearance, was absolutely magnificent – his distance and accuracy deflating Lyon time and time again – with one 50/22 won from some 15m behind the halfway line.
Safe in the knowledge that if he got put under pressure he had the formidable presence of a British and Irish Lion behind him at 10, Bath’s options, whether in exit or in attack, were far beyond what Lyon managed to create.
Spencer showed yet again that he’s the nearest thing English rugby has to a French-style nine. It was wholly fitting that the Bath skipper’s performance saw him named player of the match and if Steve Borthwick again ignores his talents for the trip to the Americas yet again then there’s truly no justice in the game.
For Lyon, the Top 14 side really struggled for shape from both their half-backs and their three-quarter line. With Test nine Baptiste Couilloud the man chosen to orchestrate affairs at the base, he simply failed to make anywhere near the impact of his opposite number, and with Berdeu under pressure from the outstanding Reid and the Bath back-row, Lyon looked deep and lateral, unable to really punch through the outstanding defensive effort from the Premiership leaders.
Designed by JVG
This was a performance that really sums up the attention to detail and the sheer simplicity of the approach of their head coach, Johann van Graan. It was one of the most ‘JVG’ performances imaginable, with nuance littered throughout the stats.
In the aerial battle, Bath recovered 12 of their 19 box-kicks from hand, a remarkable statistic. In clearing, they averaged over 40 metres, with two clearance efforts from Spencer smashing the 60 metres and gaining a 50/22 for his team.
Up front, against a world-class Lyon lineout, Bath stole two but managed a 100% return on their own ball, and in the scrum, 100% on their own ball and three scrum penalties won tells its own tale.
In the breakdown, four turnovers and 100% success on their own ball again underlines the sheer accuracy of the Bath display, and in attack, Bath achieved a red zone efficiency of some four tries from only 10 visits, another clear demonstration of their precision.
It was a magnificent execution of a detailed game plan from a leading coach, demonstrating just how far Bath has come under Johann van Graan in the last two seasons.
Underhill incident
Hollie Davidson can take a lot of pride for her all-round performance in this match. In a cauldron of pressure, most calls were dead set nailed and the Scottish ref delivered a fine spectacle. However, the one big question will remain about the moment Sam Underhill and Davit Niniashvili clashed in the 31st minute of the first half, a pivotal moment in a brutally committed game.
Let’s examine the evidence; Underhill hits harder than a freight train, that’s a given in rugby. And the Bath openside’s formidable bonce caught Niniashvili clean in the side of the face, that was clear and obvious. Force was high, but there was the question of Will Muir also being involved in the tackle moment, and another question about the height of the Georgian full-back, who was slightly lowered by his own dynamics.
This is a question of how much real mitigation there was. And in this instance, the sheer force of Underhill combined with minimal impact from Muir’s efforts, and no real dip of note by Niniashvili, means that for most informed judges this was a clear red. It is exactly the type of incident that head contact protocols have been put in place to eliminate. Underhill is one of the most committed and hardest hitters in the game; there was no malice, just a desire to nail an opponent, but a desire that, nonetheless, was poorly timed.
Davidson sent Underhill off against Pau for a similar incident and for any Frenchman or woman or neutral watching, the same outcome should have taken place in Cardiff. Underhill can count himself an extremely lucky young man.
