Team Bath waiting on other results after being edged out by Swansea in hard-fought last league game of BUCS Super Rugby season
Team Bath will have to play the waiting game to see if they have qualified for the end-of-season play-offs after being edged out 19-15 at Swansea in their last BUCS Super Rugby league game of the 2021-22 season.
It was a hard-fought encounter in Wales on Wednesday, with the Rengen-sponsored visitors holding a narrow 15-14 lead with just over 10 minutes remaining. A third Swansea try of the evening meant they took the win but Team Bath did leave with what could prove to be a vital bonus point.
They remain in the eighth and final play-off position, five points above Leeds Beckett who have two games in hand – at home to Cardiff on Saturday 12th March and away to Swansea on Wednesday 16th.
Team Bath made a bright start but it was Swansea who struck against the run of play in the 10th minute, the visitors losing a lineout inside their own 22 and being punished with a converted try.
However, they responded immediately as a fantastic 25m driving maul ended with captain Ed Ashcroft touching down just a couple of minutes later.
Swansea had the wind behind them but some determined defending limited them to just one more converted try before the interval and a George Worboys penalty with the last kick of the half meant that Team Bath were only 14-8 adrift after a hard-fought 40 minutes.
And they found themselves leading by a point just four minutes into the second period as flanker Xavier Hastings produced a fantastic line to charge onto George Wootten’s clever inside pass and slice through the Swansea defence for a brilliant try that Worboys converted.
They held the lead until the 68th minute when Swansea’s lineout drive proved too strong to repel and the hosts grabbed a try which proved to be decisive, despite Team Bath piling on the pressure in the closing stages as they fought to the end.
Aaron James, Head of Rugby at the University of Bath, said: “The players are pretty devastated because we probably did enough to win it and didn’t. We asked the guys to believe in themselves, bring the physicality, bring the workrate which I think they did and I was pleased with the tries we scored.
“I can’t fault the character of our guys this season, we’ve just let ourselves down in certain areas that are crucial to results. They’ve been great to work with all season and we’ve still got a chance to finish eighth so if we do we’ll go again.”
You can watch the match again in full here:
