Bath vs Wasps match report: George Ford holds nerve to take grudge match from flaky Wasps

Bath 25 Wasps 23: Jones will know that the best players on view would be unavailable to him in the forthcoming Six Nations

Anthony Watson scores a last-minute try to set up Bath’s win against Wasps (Getty)

Eddie Jones has been known to pull off a minor miracle or two: during his time with the Canberra-based Brumbies, he invented a whole new form of set-piece play that transformed scrummaging weaknesses into strengths; with the Wallabies, he performed a smoke-and-mirrors job on the All Blacks in a World Cup semi-final; with Japan… well, we all know things he produced out of thin air in the land of the Brave Blossoms.

The gin and tonic set at Twickenham are rather hoping that the new head coach of England can continue turning water into wine, having watched successive red-rose bosses achieve the precise opposite. But not even Fast Eddie can kid the people who run the sport that Charles Piutau never played Test rugby for New Zealand; that Francois Louw is anything other than a dyed-in-the-wool Springbok; that Nathan Hughes will cease to be a Fijian before the end of June.

Nothing much escapes Jones’ all-encompassing notice, so it no doubt occurred to him rather early in this game here that the best players on view would be unavailable to him in the forthcoming Six Nations. But there were a couple of pick-me-ups nonetheless. Joe Launchbury, the Wasps lock, put in a proper shift around the park in that “access all areas” style of his – he did particularly well in the build-up to the home side’s solitary try just shy of the hour – while George Ford claimed the spoils for the West Countrymen by landing a wickedly difficult wide-angled penalty in the final act of the contest.

Ford has not been in the pink just recently – if we’re talking colours, he has had a bad attack of the blues – and there was little sign here of the electrifying attacking work that sent a thousand volts through the whole of English rugby last season. But that conversion could hardly have been more challenging, or more important in the context of Bath’s season. If a struggling outside-half can produce marksmanship of such quality to give his side a fighting chance of making the cut for the European Champions Cup knockout stage, there can be no questioning the man’s quality. Or, indeed, his backbone.

There was enough baggage attached to this game to provoke a handlers’ strike at Heathrow: bitter rivals since the mid-1980s, when Bath were masters of all they surveyed and Wasps fancied themselves as the next big thing, they had a serious falling-out at boardroom level during the recent row over alleged salary cap abuses. Even though the broadcasters single-handedly reduced the crowd to a disappointing 11,000 by scheduling the game during Evensong, there was more than a whiff of sulphur in the air.

Yet for all their recent trials and tribulations, it was Bath who breathed most comfortably at the start and the end of the game, when the atmosphere was at its most acrid. Louw, every bit as effective on the floor as his opposite number George Smith (which is saying plenty), pilfered some turnover ball off Ruaridh Jackson midway through the first quarter to give Jonathan Joseph the opening try – a score that was too easy by half.

There was another Wasps giveaway eight minutes later, James Haskell’s horribly public fumble presenting the mind-bogglingly unpredictable Fijian scrum-half Niko Matawalu with an opportunity to free Matt Banahan on a glory run to the line. Banahan did some good things all round, to the extent that Semesa Rokoduguni may not be the only substantially constructed Bath wing to attract some interest from the red-rose hierarchy.

George Ford sealed victory for Bath with a last-minute conversion (Getty)

For all the danger posed by Piutau in open field and the rumbustious work of Hughes in the heavy traffic, Wasps could not come up with anything nearly as watchable. Jackson kicked some close-range penalties and there was a veritable howitzer from the thunder-booted Elliot Daly, but it was not until Launchbury set things in train for Rob Miller’s try towards the right flag that the home side inched ahead and looked truly capable of winning a third Euro match in succession.

Unfortunately for them, things went a very funny shape at the last knockings. Jérôme Garcès, the French referee, suddenly took a dislike to Wasps’ work at the ruck and gave Ford the chance to set up a five-metre line-out with the clock ticking down. In fact, there were three line-outs, the second and third of which resulted in the sin-binnings of Lorenzo Cittadini and the influential Smith.

Louw, perhaps a little befuddled by all the effort he had put in, then elected to scrum a penalty, without realising that the set piece would be uncontested because of Wasps’ injury count. It did not matter. Bath went through a couple of spin-off rucks before sending the ball left, and the England back Anthony Watson nailed the crucial touchdown despite the attentions of Sailosi Tagicakibau. When Ford added the extras, the deed was done.

“I found some of the late decisions a little mysterious, but we have to look at ourselves,” said the Wasps rugby director, David Young, with an expression that suggested he had just bitten into a piece of rotten fruit. “Bath played no rugby whatsoever; we played far too much of it. We have to be smarter.”

His players have an immediate chance to smarten up: the return game at the Recreation Ground is this weekend. There will be no love lost.

Wasps; Try Miller; Penalties Jackson 4, Daly, Gopperth. Bath: Tries Joseph, Banahan, Watson; Conversions Ford 2; Penalties Ford 2.

Wasps R Miller; S Tagicakibau, E Daly, B Jacobs (A Leiua, 68), C Piutau; R Jackson (J Gopperth, 59), J Simpson (D Robson, 71); M Mullan (S McIntyre, 67), A Johnson, J Cooper-Woolley (L Cittadini, 48), J Launchbury, B Davies (J Gaskell, 64), J Haskell (capt), G Smith, N Hughes (S Jones, 71).

Bath A Watson; S Rokoduguni, J Joseph, K Eastmond (R Priestland, 71), M Banahan (T Homer, 65); G Ford, N Matawalu; M Lahiff (N Catt, 55), R Batty (R Webber, 55), D Wilson (H Thomas, h-t), T Ellis (L Houston, 17), D Attwood, M Garvey, F Louw (capt), D Denton (C Ewels, 59-68 and 71).

Referee J Garcès (France).