Bath 63-10 Edinburgh: Alfie Barbeary powers hosts into last 16

Bath ……………………………… 63pts

Tries: du Toit 14, penalty 17, Obano 30, Dunn 40, Cokanasiga 56, 70; Spencer 60, Arundell 67, Ojomoh 74 Conversions: Smith 15, 31, 40+1, 57, 61, 68, 71, 75

Edinburgh ……………………..10pts

Try: O’Conor 35 Conversion: Thompson 36 Penalty: Thompson 2

England don’t exactly lack for back-row candidates at present, but a rampaging Alfie Barbeary must come into the Six Nations equation after yet another MOM performance in Europe.

Barbeary laid waste to the Edinburgh pack at The Rec with his relentless physicality and ball carrying to set up the most straightforward of wins as Bath topped their group and marched into the Round of 16.

Barbeary said: “We came out flying and the result showed. We had a hunger for this game and wanted a home game in the knockout stage, so that was the big thing for us.

“We’ll see who we get and where the pool ends up and go from there.”

Rising up the pecking order

Edinburgh, with injuries aplenty and a desire to rest a few players, travelled with what amounted to a Club and Ground XV, which was disappointing and rather highlights the chronic weakness of the current Champions Cup format, but Bath’s quality in tricky conditions still has to be applauded.

With Barbeary to the fore, their pack battered the Scots up front in the first half before the backs took over against a tiring team after the break to further pile on the points and the Scottish agony.

Barbeary may have started life as a hooker, but it’s at No.8 that he has finally settled, and with Tom Willis not alas eligible, he is rising up the England pecking order.

Ben Earl is the current incumbent, and you could play Henry Pollock there rather than openside, but it all depends on what Steve Borthwick is looking for.

If you want rock-solid ‘go forward’ in heavy traffic, Barbeary is your man.

If the intention is to play “wide wide” from the off, the two quicker men are better suited.

At this stage, Barbeary looks more like a candidate for the bench, given that he can also play six and, of course, at a push hooker – but what is for sure is that his potential presence gives Borthwick another very interesting card to play.

Match action

He was certainly too much for an underpowered and at times callow Edinbugh who just couldn’t cope with the Bath pack generally.

In the first half, all three front rowers – Beno Obano, Thomas du Toit and Tom Dunn – helped themselves to short-range tries, while much to the chagrin of Barberay, his try was changed to a penalty try by the referee despite the fact that he had touched down already.

There was one moment of brave and highly skilled defiance from Edinburgh when Piers O’Conor rolled back the years and scored one of those spectacular tries he used to be part of during his Bristol days.

This time, he benefited from a brilliant break from Harry Paterson and a beautifully timed inside switch pass from Ben Vellacott.

Second half

Alas, it was a one-off, and after the break, Bath really went to work against tiring opponents as they resisted the temptation of emptying the bench too soon.

They wanted to ruthlessly improve their points difference to ensure the highest possible seeding come the Round of 16.

It was party time. Joe Cokanasiga had looked lively all evening; in fact, he has been in good nick for a good while now, and he crossed for two tries, the first one a particularly noteworthy effort as he managed to somehow shrug off three converging Edinburgh defenders.

Have his Test days gone or is he back in the frame?

Ben Spencer ran his usual scrum-half support line to grab a try for himself before departing, Henry Arundell appeared on the opposite right wing to score a simple try having nearly scored a wonder try moments early on his own flank only to spill the ball at the death and finally Max Ojomoh dived into the corner for his team’s ninth try and hopefully that was just cramp and nothing more serious as he moved gingerly back to halfway for the restart.