Bath v Wasps

http://www.rugbynetwork.net/main/bath/s105/st164519/bath-v-wasps–ouch

Bath 6 Wasps 11 Bath failed to warm the hearts of hardy supporters who turned out in freezing temperatures on Saturday afternoon, as the home side came away with a lucky losing bonus point against London Wasps.
Temperatures were below freezing at kick off, but the pitch had been well cared for and both teams were prepared to play.
The first half started well enough, with both teams exchanging knock-ons and penalties; some parity on that particular stage at least.
A promising Bath attack was spoilt by a knock on but Wasps were penalised in the resulting scrum. The subsequent Bath attack was turned over by Wasps- something they made a habit of today- but lineout was not straight.
Bath’s lineout in contrast was probably the best part of their game today.

Some good attack play which originated in the Bath 22 saw Olly Barkley execute a sweet pass to Nick Scott, who fired up the touch line and chipped the ball through. Bath players chased the ball but were not able to prevent Richard Houghton from putting the ball down over the line. Bath were given a five metre scrum but penalised.
The next Bath attack was promising but once again the home team lost the ball to a Wasps turnover. Wasps attacking play was tenacious and determined and helped totally by a frankly terrible spell of defence from Bath. Wasps were extremely close to scoring a try but Bath managed to turn the ball over somehow and it was kicked away.
Sam Vesty – who had a poor night by anyone’s standards – chipped a kick to near the corner flag. A Wasps lineout on the five metre line was kicked away, but although Bath attacked again, they knocked on. Again.
Bath’s defence was tested once again when a Bath kick was charged down and Tom Varndell was threatening. The ball bounced around all over the place and Bath seemed to have no clue as to how to deal with it.
Then followed two Wasps penalties, kicked by Dave Walder, to give Wasps a six point lead.
Wasps attacked again, and we were treated to some really poor Bath tackling. Simon Taylor simply looked at one Wasps player, perhaps thinking his ferocious glare would have taken the man down.
An almost certain try from Wasps was avoided only thanks to a spectacular knock on; the score, if it had come, would have been inevitable and it was amazing it was avoided.
However, suddenly the ball popped up from a ruck in the Wasps half, the ball was kicked down and Varndell chased the ball down, scooped it up, and fell over the line. Nick Abendanon, as full-back, was no-where to be seen.
The conversion was missed, and Wasps led by eight points.
Wasps were penalised at a scrum, so Barkley kicked at goal, but missed.
What was almost a fantastic start to the second half for Bath almost turned into a disastrous one, after Guy Mercer caught the kick, span around and evaded Wasps players to charge half way down the field. However, the support players did not arrive and Wasps scooped up the ball to set up a Wasps attack.
Bath definitely improved in the second half (but that is not saying much). A Bath attack sent Wasps offside and gave Barkley a first chance to put points on the board. This set the score board to 3-8.
An illegal Wasps turnover on the half way line created a debate involving the senior players as to how to take the penalty- Claassens ultimately pointed at the corner. Barkley’s kick set up a line-out on the 22. Bath remained camped on the five metre line, and this was the best chance Bath had to score. The scrum was reset a few times and eventually Bath had a penalty. Barkley slotted the ball through the posts and the score was 6-8.
With around eight minutes to go, amazingly Bath were still in the game, but after a penalty was given away at the scrum, Wasps naturally chose to kick the points, which resulted in a final score of 6-11.
I didn’t see last week’s game, choosing instead (wisely, I think) to go to the O2 and watch some quality tennis, as Andy Murray beat Robin Soderling. I therefore can’t comment on the game against Sarries, but for me, the first half was some of the worst rugby I have seem Bath play this season. The second half picked up a bit, but we never really looked threatening or like scoring a try.
Against a persistent Wasps defence, Bath looked second best for most of the game; frustrating, given both sets of fans had turned out in unpleasant, below freezing conditions. Guy Mercer and Nick Scott played well, which was a positive in what was a pretty miserable show. Thank the Lord for that losing bonus point!

Spooks

The ending of the current series of Spooks left me with a worried, panicky feeling; not only had the comfort of watching the sublime Richard Armitage acting as a hero every week been snatched away, but I was faced with the prospect of it being the last ever episode of Spooks.

It would have been a fitting end, perhaps, to see Harry Pierce told he was in all likelihood to be removed from the service; peace, then, for a man who had been pushed to the very edge in recent series.

It was with great delight though, that after the end of Series nine last night, the screen flashed up with a message confirming a tenth series for 2011. With Max Brown and Sophia Myles looking really promising as replacements for Richard Armitage, another series of Spooks is something to smile about, even if the dénouement to Series nine was as far removed from conjuring up a smile as it is possible to be.

Richard Armitage as Lucas North had slotted so easily into the role of lead spy, that it became easy to forget Rupert Penry-Jones ever strode around being moody on the grid.

It was either a masterstroke or a cruel trick to turn our, Lucas’s, and the team’s words upside down by revealing him slowly as the villain of the piece.
Throughout the series, we found out that Lucas North wasn’t really Lucas North, and the shady past we thought we knew wasn’t so much shady, but pitch black.
While never entirely turning him into a moustache twirling baddy, our opinion of Lucas and what he was prepared to do was fundamentally changed, slowly and slyly, so that this final episode was all about taking him down.
But we still couldn’t quite bring ourselves to want Lucas to lose; the role of hero had been stamped on his forehead for so long that it was gut wrenching to see him turn into back into someone he had fought for years to escape from.

There were a few plot and character points that didn’t quite gel; Maya, purportedly the main reason Lucas was behaving this way, was a bit irritating and not really that relevant.
And surely Harry would have finally said something to Ruth about his feelings, given she had just been saved from dying and he was walking to his end?
And would Lucas really let people die that way; had he become so cold? Perhaps he had.

This whole series, as clever, engrossing and alarming as it was, will certainly change the way we view Lucas on repeated viewing of past series.

The final set piece seemed to indicate that Lucas had committed suicide by jumping off the rooftop he was standing on with Harry, having lost all he was fighting for and losing sight and control of who he was.
Would it be too cynical to suggest that we didn’t see him do it and we didn’t see a body?
Or maybe I am simply indulging in some wishful thinking; Richard Armitage is of course soon to star in The Hobbit and perhaps the story of Lucas North was always meant to end on the top of a London building.
I think the truth is that we have been rather spoilt with the luxury of watching Armitage every week for the past three seasons of the show.

Thankfully for the many fans of this simply superior drama, Spooks will be back next year, without Armitage and maybe even without Peter Firth, perish the thought.
But part of the joy of Spooks is the way it carries on regardless of the personnel on screen; the team must always survive.

Bath vs Cardiff Blues 05/11/10

http://www.rugbynetwork.net/main/s105/st163902.htm

It has been the accepted practice over the last couple of years to send out a relatively weak or young team in the LV cup; referred to optimistically by coaches as “up and coming” or a “squad team”, it is not always a strategy that worked.
It was therefore something of a surprise to see the line-up for Friday night’s game against the Cardiff Blues, as it looked like it wouldn’t be a case of sending lambs to the slaughter.
And actually, it seemed like it would be a good chance to get a long, hard look at the players we only see for ten minutes at the end of a Premiership game, or hear rumours are playing really well for Bath United.
Starts were handed Guy Mercer and Ben Williams and they had a big opportunity to show the rest of the team exactly what they could do.
In addition to this, a return to first team action for Peter Short, a run out as fly half for Olly Barkley, and a chance to show his leadership skills for Matt Banahan were just enough to get Bath fans out of the door and into the rain at the end of a long week.
Grey skies had been throwing down a steady, bone chilling mist all day, but despite the weather it was with optimism I arrived at the Rec, hoping to see fireworks on the pitch instead of in the sky.
Bath started the better of the two sides, with a lost scrum by Cardiff leading to a promising Bath attack.
This was ended by a knock on, but after a really lovely run from Jack Cuthbert at fullback, Bath were awarded a penalty for a high tackle on Cuthbert; a difficult feat, considering how tall the young man is.
Barkley missed the subsequent penalty kick at goal but the fans who had turned out on a cold, wet night were given points aplenty a few minutes later when, after a lovely running line from Mark MacMillan, a space opened up for Guy Mercer who almost reached the try line. The ball popped up for captain Banahan, who slammed his not inconsiderable frame over the line for a try. Barkley converted for a 7-0 lead.
Cardiff Blues bit back fairly quickly through two penalty kicks at goal from stand- off Gareth Davies. A few Bath attacks ended through knock ons- the ball was becoming slippery by now- and it took a moment of intelligence from Barkley for Bath to get their next points. Jack Cuthbert took down several Cardiff players before offloading to Barkley, who chipped a kick through to the left of the pitch, where it was gathered by Tom Biggs, who went over for a well worked try. Barkley’s conversion just went through the sticks, bouncing off the right upright to give the hosts a 14-6 lead.
After another penalty from the Blue’s, they almost scored a try when Barkley’s kick was charged down and kicked downfield. It took every effort from an impressive Biggs to stop an easy try. However, once Gareth Davies’ mates had arrived, it wasn’t long until he popped over the line for a Welsh try; after his conversion of his own score, he had scored all of the visitors 16 points. It was a bad kick from Barkley which led to this try, in stark contrast to his kick a few moments earlier when he sent Biggs in for a try.
Cardiff were not in the lead for long, and after Barkley kicked another penalty, Bath were leading 17-16.
At this point, the heavens well and truly opened, which was to the detriment of the quality of rugby on the pitch. Barkley repeated his kick to the left corner to Biggs, but the ball went into touch. A promising attack from Bath followed, and after his forwards did the hard work of getting the ball in front of the posts, Barkley dropped a goal which, although giving him three more points, also meant he landed on his backside in the mud. I’m sure he didn’t mind.
The opening exchanges in the second half were pretty messy; the rain didn’t let up for the rest of the match and the quality dropped a little.
John Yapp was sin-binned for, I think, deliberately knocking the ball on. The Blues seemed to rally from this, and despite conceding another three points through a Barkley penalty, ran some nice attacking lines and moved determinately up the pitch. They added three to their total with another penalty kicked by Gareth Davies.
Two more penalties from Bath stretched the home sides lead.
A Cardiff penalty was kicked into the left corner and lead to what looked like a certain try; it seemed to me as if a Welsh hand had grounded the ball and then knocked it on, but on referring the decision to the TMO, the referee indicated no try had been scored. It was something of a reprieve for Bath, who would have been feeling decidedly twitchy had their lead been reduced in the last ten minutes.
The last few phases of the match did not really go anywhere; the young but exciting Cardiff side rather had the wind knocked out of their sails by the ref’s decision not to award the try.
A wave of young Bath talent came on in the last few minutes of the match, but no more points were scored, and the ball was tamely kicked off to end the match, with a score of 29-19.
Amazingly, given the conditions and the fact that this was an LV cup game, this was a really entertaining match. So often in the Anglo-Welsh cup one team is markedly stronger than the other and we end up with something of a cricket score.
It is to the credit of both sides that a match that could have been simply rain soaked and dull was actually really rather enjoyable. Although I haven’t mentioned him so far, Fernadez-Lobbe was man of the match for me; strong, powerful and dynamic, he more often had the ball than not, and made great territory gains when he bashed through any pink shirt he saw. Barkley, despite far too many chip kicks through to no-one in particular, had a very good game at fly half. Why he was here playing for us, rather than at Twickenham playing for England is anyone’s guess, but I for one am glad he was.
Josh Ovens, Guy Mercer and Ben Williams also all deserve a mention for an impressive display.