Bath oust Edinburgh to reach Challenge Cup final

Challenge Cup

Edinburgh (10) 24

Thompson 2 Penalty Cons: Thompson 2 Penalty Thompson

Bath (12) 39

Bath defeated Edinburgh to place in the Challenge Cup final, keeping their hopes of a domestic and European success on track.

With a Mosese Tuipulotu score and five points from Ross Thompson’s boot keeping Edinburgh in the game, Sam Underhill and Tom Dunn crossed for first-half tries.

After the break, Edinburgh came out on top before a second try from Dunn and one from Alfie Barbeary restored the lead for Bath. In contrast, late on, Niall Annett and Guy Pepper touched down to send Bath home.

When Price hacked ahead of a loose ball in a frantic manner, he had a chance to score early for the hosts, but he momentarily gave up the chase after thinking he had put too much pressure on it. The ball was kept in the in-goal area by the bounce, but Finn Russell was able to nip in ahead of Price and touch down for a goalline dropout due to the hesitation.

Thompson then knocked off the post with a fairly straightforward penalty attempt, and Bath received its first blow when Underhill crashed over from close range.

When a quick line-out caused the visitors to appear to be settling into their stride, Tuipulotu crossed over and Thompson converted to level things up.

The Bath team started to show up after the home side had to defend the majority of the ground. After a strong rolling line-out maul, hooker Dunn reclaimed control of the scrum and started to take the offense.

Edinburgh were two men at the break when Thompson kicked a penalty to keep them at two.

After a cynical knock-on by Tom de Glanville, they engineered an overlap out wide, and Wes Goosen appeared to have put Darcy Graham over in the corner. De Glanville received a yellow card, and Edinburgh took the lead 17-12.

Bath hammered at the Edinburgh line from the other end. Beno Obano was passed over, but a television match official (TMO) intervention revealed he had been blocked and had been held up.

It was only a matter of time before the home side’s defense was breached because they were under a lot of pressure. Dunn eventually completed his second attempt, which was a direct copy of his first, following a successful line-out maul.

The Premiership leaders were now clearly in control when substitute Barbeary scored a fourth try to put them one score ahead of them.

Bath scored three points to make it 10 points from the top, but Russell scored with a brave try just as the match started to look like it was about to end.

Thompson ghosted through a midfield gap before finding Price running a fantastic support line to defeat the cover defense and score to bring his team back within three.