Bath stunned as Exeter head for final after last-ditch drama caps comeback

For the first time since the greatest game in Premiership history, the away team have won a playoff. This might not have been a comeback to match that of Harlequins at Bristol in 2021, but Exeter looked every bit as dead and buried at half-time. And then a new team took to the field for the second half.

So we will have a new champion. Bath had so dominated the first half, their lead was the least they might have expected. But in the second half they looked utterly bewildered, like a golfer who just cannot understand why he can no longer hit the ball straight. Where they had smashed through collisions, they were now staggering off rampant Exeter runners. Same sport, apparently – they just couldn’t play it any more.

They mounted one last attack, picking and going, picking and going. Bath had not been awarded a single penalty in the second half. The referee was not going to start then. How they could have done with Finn Russell to land a drop goal, but the Scotland fly-half had not quite recovered.

Santi Carreras is a genius, but he has played only occasionally at fly-half this season and he never called for it. Bath could have whipped the ball wide, where Joe Cokanasiga waited in acres, but they kept it close, their confidence shot, and the Chiefs held them up to herald the final whistle.

Exeter were inspired by a new front row. How such details can transform a match and we had another unlikely comeback win to breathe further life into this most vibrant of competitions.

“Everything is stacked against you [in an away playoff],” said Rob Baxter. “And then you’re 16 points down at half-time, your scrum is getting beaten. If you’re not emotionally tied together, that game becomes 30 or 40 points. These lads are tied together.”

If rugby matches were won by sheer force of will (and they quite often are), Bath would have been out of sight by half-time. As it is, they led by 26-10, which is something to be getting on with, four tries to one. But the Chiefs were subjected to a form of full-frontal assault for almost the entirety of the first half.

Roared on by a Rec bathed in splendid sunshine, their set piece was dominant (how that would change), Alfie Barbeary was scattering defenders, the midfield all subtlety and power in perfect balance. The tries followed inevitably.

Henry Slade’s fairly blatant offence round the fringes of the latest Bath attack, in the 11th minute, earned him a spell in the bin. Tom Dunn tapped the penalty and Beno Obano would not be stopped from the next ruck. Same idea for Bath’s second, just before Slade returned. Barbeary smashed his way to a few feet short off an attacking lineout, and Thomas du Toit, fresh from his hat-trick last week, added another, this time carrying half the Exeter pack over the line with him from five metres out.

So much for brute force. Bath were showing plenty in the way of sleight of hand too, and so it told just shy of the half hour. Christ Tshiunza’s brilliant solo try, rounding Carreras as if he were a winger, not the 6ft 6in flanker-cum lock he really is, had just pulled Exeter back to within five, when Tom de Glanville slipped a pass to release Ollie Lawrence. His pass on the run found Cokanasiga on the charge for Bath’s third. Five minutes later, they had a fourth, Ben Spencer’s cross-kick somehow grounded by Henry Arundell, a split-second before he crossed the dead-ball line.

When the shift in momentum happened, it was spectacular. Exeter changed their entire front row and in so doing changed everything. Ben Hammersley was over for the first of their three unanswered tries, 17 unanswered points. Then, just shy of the hour, a Harvey Skinner break sent the suddenly ferocious Greg Fisilau to a couple of metres short, felled by a brilliant Josh Bayliss tackle. No matter, Fisilau sprang to his feet and forced his way over a couple of phases later.

A particularly harsh yellow card for Cokanasiga, who had every chance of intercepting, at the start of the final quarter was preceded by a try of brute force again, this one for Ethan Burger, one of the supersubs in Exeter’s front row. Comeback consummated.

The Chiefs have never lost a playoff. Now, against Northampton at Twickenham next Saturday, they have a chance to become the first team to win the Prem from third place. We have seen everything else. Why not?