Max Ojomoh strikes final blow as dogged Bath battle past Harlequins | Premiership

Rugby has long been a game of contrasting styles. Festival rugby is some people’s idea of heaven; others dismiss it as akin to basketball, all frills no crunch. Twickenham was rocking all right, but far from full for Harlequins’ latest spectacle across the road from their normal home. They played the beautiful rugby for which they are renowned, scoring five tries to delight, but Bath needed this result more and duly took it in a somewhat less frilly manner.

The visitors scored six tries, most of them meaty and prosaic. Three of them came in the last 15 minutes to take the game away from Quins and maintain Bath’s chances of making Europe. Quins’ chances of the playoffs had evaporated the night before with Northampton’s win at Newcastle.

Bath’s tries five and six, by Joe Cokanasiga and Max Ojomoh, were a bit easier on the eye than the others. Their last particularly was fine, Ollie Lawrence sprung through a hole to send over his mate in the centre. In between, Marcus Smith had broken in typically brilliant style to pave the way for Alex Dombrandt’s try, which pulled Quins back to within three, but the artists were well and truly beaten by the hod carriers with something to play for.

Quins’ world fell apart on the half-hour. It might be stretching it to describe either side as playing by then as if their lives depended on it, but to see two yellow cards in as many minutes puts something of a dent into the age-old imperative to win a given game.

The hosts had just wrested back a measure of control. Bath had taken the lead twice in the first quarter, first from Tom Dunn’s finish of a driven line-out, then through a Ben Spencer penalty after Cadan Murley found himself, as ever, on the end of some typically sweeping approach work for Quins’ first. Luke Wallace then went over after more wide-ranging brilliance from the home team to earn Quins the lead for the first time. But then came the yellow cards.

André Esterhuizen saw the first for the latest exhibition of absurdity surrounding head collisions. There was absolutely nothing he could have done when Ollie Lawrence stepped sharply off his left foot, precipitating a head collision between the two.

At least Esterhuizen’s helplessness was recognised by the downgrade from red to yellow, but the fact these games are being shaped at all by such rugby inevitabilities as a clash of heads tells us all we need to know about the sport’s desperate condition. Ludicrously, Esterhuizen never returned having failed a head injury assessment while he was in the bin.

There were no complaints, though, over the second yellow, Murley punished for just the sort of cynical knockdown for which the yellow card was invented. Bath were quick to make the most of their birthday presents. GJ van Velze finished from the pick-and-goes Bath set up from the penalty to the corner, but Quins defied the numbers with another brilliant score five minutes before the break.

Marcus Smith, for whom such occasions were made, pulled Bath’s two extra defenders out of shape to send Joe Marchant through a gap and appear on his shoulder to take the scoring return pass. A couple of minutes later, though, the numbers told when Orlando Bailey sent a cross-kick to Quins’ empty left wing, where Joe Cokanasiga won the ball and sent Lawrence charging through to the line.

Bath’s two-man advantage expired early in the second half – as did their lead for a while. The ding-dong try-scoring was maintained, as was the contrast in styles. Lewis Gjaltema was put over by Smith after a brilliant counter by Louis Lynagh to put Quins ahead as the final quarter approached. But those three tries in the final quarter, the first by Niall Annett from another driven line-out, would prove decisive for Bath.