Bath vs Harlequins match report: Nick Evans makes hosts pay for indiscipline

Bath 28 Harlequins 38

Nick Evans kicked 28 points to earn Harlequins victory against Bath (Getty)

You could hardly move for issues here but one man, at least, rose supremely above them all. One day Harlequins will have to replace Nick Evans but they are in no hurry to do so, not after their 35-year-old New Zealander kicked 28 points and had a hand or foot in everything they did.

Only on Friday, Bath issued a statement denying any breach of the Aviva Premiership salary cap; then there is the debate over Sam Burgess’s potential return to rugby league and the notion that Bath could yet renew their interest in the Wales No 8 Taulupe Faletau at this season’s end. Topping it all off was the return to action after so disappointing a World Cup for his team of Chris Robshaw, England’s beleaguered captain.

Did any of these matter a fig to Evans? He did what his countrymen always do, got on with the job in hand and guided Harlequins to a record return in the Premiership on this ground. With eight minutes remaining, the visitors led 38-16 but Bath saved some blushes with two tries to earn a degree of respectability.

Bath coach Mike Ford sighed as he reiterated that Burgess is expected to train tomorrow with the club to whom he is contracted for another two years. Certainly if Burgess needs to justify his move to union as the back-row forward Bath want him to be, then he needs more than just a year and probably out of the England environment into which he was thrust all too soon.

Robshaw knows all about that environment and will be happy to be back with his mates just now. “I thought he grew into that game,” Conor O’Shea, Harlequins’ director of rugby, said. “He’ll prove himself one of the best back-row forwards in England. If people want to make him captain, I don’t care, I just feel for him and all the unwarranted stick he’s had. England have one special player in Chris Robshaw.

“We have a laugh about [the criticism], it’s the world we live in. Some of it is so populist, easy to throw out there in a world where the minority make the headlines.”

Bath made life easy for Evans with their total lack of discipline at the breakdown. He kept them in the game with four penalties before the interval, just when Bath seemed to have put behind them a bad case of butterfingers and created a neat try for Kyle Eastmond.

After the break the creativity was all with Harlequins. Danny Care broke from a ruck on his own 22, made 40 metres and chipped ahead. Leroy Houston, Bath’s player of the match by a distance, slipped in covering back and Care scooted over to score.

Evans added three more penalties and then threw the overhead pass from which Tim Visser, the Scotland wing making his first appearance and denied a try by a forward pass from Mike Brown, sent David Ward to the line. By then, Bath had been reduced to 14 when Eastmond was sent to the bin for a no-arms tackle on Marland Yarde and though they worked Nick Auterac over from a line-out and scored a third try through Semesa Rokoduguni, it was far too late to affect the result.

Bath A Watson; S Rokoduguni, O Devoto (R Priestland, 52), K Eastmond, M Banahan (T Homer, 62); G Ford, N Matawalu (C Cook, 68); M Lahiff (N Auterac, 50), R Webber (R Batty, 50), D Wilson (H Thomas, 43), D Day (S Hooper, 62), D Attwood (capt, M Northcote-Green, 73), M Garvey, G Mercer, L Houston.

Harlequins M Brown; M Yarde, G Lowe, H Sloan, T Visser (O Lindsay-Hague, 73); N Evans (B Botica, 73), D Care (capt, K Dickson, 73); J Marler (M Lambert, 62), J Gray (D Ward, 54), A Jones (K Sinckler, 54), J Horwill (C Matthews, 57), S Twomey, J Clifford (L Wallace, 68), C Robshaw, N Easter.

Referee: M Carley (Kent).

Attendance: 13,065

Bath

Tries: Eastmond, Auterac, Rokoduguni

Cons: Ford 2

Pens: Ford 3

Harlequins

Tries: Care, Ward

Cons: Evans 2

Pens: Evans 8