Bath go top at Christmas as Bomb Squad finish off Newcastle

Bath scored eight tries to claim a dominant 50-14 Gallagher Prem win over Newcastle Red Bulls at Kingston Park.

A back-and-forth first half saw Dan Frost score two tries in reply to Ollie Leatherbarrow’s opener and Amanaki Mafi grounded for Newcastle before Archie Griffin went over to hand the visitors a 19-14 lead at the break.

Francois van Wyk, Will Butt, Tom de Glanville and replacements, Ben Spencer and Ted Hill, all crossed in a ruthless second-half display from Bath to claim a sixth Prem victory of the campaign and deliver Newcastle’s seventh league defeat.

Leatherbarrow sent the hosts ahead just four minutes in after squeezing through a gap in the away defence to dive over the line and Brett Connon added the extras.

However, the visitors responded from a line-out where Frost broke away from the driving maul to touch down, but Santi Carreras’ conversion attempt smashed off a post.

Bath then put in a strong defensive showing to deny Newcastle on the try-line after and withstood a good spell of pressure before charging up the other end.

Frost bagged his second try of the game after slipping through the Newcastle line and the hooker was ruled to have grounded the ball successfully following a TMO review before Carreras’ kicked the conversion.

An entertaining tussle between the two sides saw the hosts reply when Mafi scooped up the ball from the maul on the right flank to dive over, which Connon converted.

Griffin then went over for Bath from a quickly-tapped penalty, with Carreras slotting through the posts to send them ahead at half-time.

Bath extended their lead three minutes after the break when Van Wyk touched down next to the posts following a good move, with Carreras converting.

They had another excellent opportunity when a a high kick was pushed into the path of Ewan Richards, who charged towards the tryline and was stopped.

Sammy Arnold was shown a yellow card for Newcastle and another quickly-taken penalty saw the ball played into Butt, who crashed over the whitewash for a 33-14 lead.

The visitors sent on all eight of their replacements for the final 25 minutes and they soon had their sixth try when Spencer made a brilliant offload to De Glanville to touch down in the left corner.

Just minutes later, an excellent move down the right flank was finished by Spencer, but Carreras sent both conversions wide.

With one minute to go, Hill went over and Carreras successfully converted to complete a dominant display for the league leaders.