ON A tough evening at Kingsholm, Gloucester could escape neither a suffocating Bath defence, nor the attentions of referee Greg Garner as six penalties and a penalty try paved the way to a 39-16 win for the visitors.

You couldn’t accuse Gloucester of a lack of effort, far from it. The Cherry and Whites may even have edged the possession and territory stats. It’s a cliché, but the scoreline probably didn’t reflect the balance of play. But when it mattered, Bath did good business.

Try as they might, Gloucester simply couldn’t crack the Bath defence on Saturday evening, despite enjoying some good possession and territory.

The sides exchanged penalty points to 6-6 then Bath began to move away. Tom Ford’s kicking boots were adjusted to deadly as he took Bath to 9-15 at half time.

Gloucester emerged with a renewed impetus but Bath were determined to hold what they had and a little against the run of play Ford was able to pop over a penalty for 9-18.

The contest began to slip away and the referee, in yellow-carding Sila Puafisi for a scrummage offence, gave Bath the encouragement they needed to score a try. In fact they took two against the reduced home side and put the game beyond doubt.

Finally, to the relief of the home fans, Robson scored what you might call a consolation try to draw the scoreboard to 16-32.

A very nice conversion from Hook followed but the result was not much in doubt. The visitors confirmed their superiority on the day with the last try and conversion of the afternoon, Tom Ford imperiously firing home for his side’s 39th point, of which he had contributed a sterling 29.