If it is notoriously risky to read too much into scrappy opening games, the return of Jack Rowell to Bath already seems to have brought his old club a change of luck. Last season they failed to register a single away win in the Zurich Premiership but yesterday brought success on the road at the first attempt courtesy of a controversial penalty from Olly Barkley in the eighth minute of injury-time.
London Irish officials intend to study the video carefully to discover how the referee Roy Maybank managed to prolong a contest they thought had been settled when their fly-half Barry Everitt, who missed five penalty attempts, landed an 84th-minute drop-goal to put Irish briefly ahead 22-21.
Irish claim the fourth official told them there would be only three additional minutes and were also aggrieved at the award of the last crucial penalty when their hooker Richard Kirke came around the side of a midfield ruck in the clear belief that the referee had already signalled the ball out. A touch judge, however, advised Maybank to the contrary and the left-footed Barkley nailed the crucial kick from close to half-way.
A dismal game scarcely deserved such an exciting finale and the Exiles' director of rugby, Conor O'Shea, will write a report recommending the precise amount of time added is publicly announced. "I'll ask because there was somehow five extra minutes of injury-time in the last six minutes of the game," he said.
Even Bath's team director, Michael Foley, conceded the match had lasted longer than he had expected but, unsurprisingly, will not be complaining. With a long injury-list hampering his pre-season plans, he preferred to highlight the "enormous amount of guts" shown by his side and congratulated young Barkley, who kicked 21 points in total, on keeping his nerve when it mattered.
Foley was rather less precise about Rowell's contribution - "Jack asks a lot of rhetorical questions with a glint in his eye and a big grin" - and it would certainly be stretching a point to say the 65-year-old's comeback as director of rugby coincided with a return to the vibrant game Bath played in their title-winning heyday.
For all the Australian influence which now permeates Bath's coaching team, the quality of the first-half would have shamed Wagga Wagga Under-12s. To be fair to Foley he is still without a raft of internationals - Mike Catt, Mike Tindall, Gareth Cooper, Dan Lyle and Simon Danielli should at least be available this weekend - but the visitors' attacking ambitions were limited in the extreme.
Their new fly-half Chris Malone, from Australia via Exeter, kicked relentlessly and it was just as well their opponents were unrecognisably sluggish compared with the innovative dashers who lifted the Powergen Cup last May.
Irish did at least keep the ball in hand long enough to be awarded a 51st-minute penalty try and Everitt's fourth penalty put them 19-18 ahead with eight minutes of normal time left. Barkley, though, grabbed the initiative back with his sixth penalty in the 78th minute and Irish looked doomed when, first, Michael Horak and then Paul Gustard ruined promising attacks by spilling the ball in midfield.
Belatedly, however, Everitt stifled the groans with a wonderfully-taken drop-goal from over 40 metres and O'Shea could barely believe the final twist. "Bath never looked like scoring anything resembling a try. Barry's disappointed but he's won us many games in the past and he's going to win us a bucketload more."
· The winner of this weekend's Uruguay v Chile match in Montevideo will qualify for next year's World Cup after Uruguay's historic 10-9 victory over USA on Saturday. Canada have already qualified and will feature in the same pool as New Zealand and Wales.
London Irish : Horak; Sackey, Appleford, Hoadley, Rossouw; Everitt, Edwards; Hatley (Worsley, 48), Drotske (Kirke, 47), Halford (Hardwick, 47), Strudwick (capt), Casey, Gustard, Dawson (Danaher, 63), Sheasby.
Con : Everitt. Pens : Everitt 4. Drop-goal : Everitt.
Bath : Barkely; Thirlby, Maggs, Crockett, Voyce; Malone, Blake; Barnes (Emms h-t), Humphreys (Mears, 63), Galasso, Beattie, Grewcock (capt), G Thomas, A Vander, N Thomas.
Pens : Barkley 7. Drop-goal: Malone.
Sin-bin : Humphreys 35; Emms 56. Hoadley 56.
Referee : R Maybank.
