Bath's rush up the table continues. A seventh win in their past seven league outings set them on course for a play-off place after staring at possible relegation just before Christmas.
The last time Bath were beaten in the league was in early December at Northampton, when a late try and a red card left them two points above Leeds in the relegation zone. They put Harlequins away with three crisp tries – the pick coming from the former England front-row combination of Lee Mears and Duncan Bell.
Mears made it with a 30-yard dart from close on half way, before the 20-stone prop cruised alongside for a less-than-balletic touch-down alongside the posts. It was one of those rugby moments that take the breath away and Harlequins were still trying to catch theirs when Joe Maddocks topped off a textbook three-quarter move, created by Butch James and developed by Olly Barkley for a score in the right corner, four minutes later.
Bath, the form side in the country with 29 points from a possible 35, had Barkley and James starting together for the first time this season and it was easy to see why the club has been sending out signals that it will fight to hang on to the midfield partnership.
While Harlequins last week lost England wing David Strettle to Saracens, Bath have been warning potential South African suitors that it will cost them dear to take James home ahead of the world cup. Yesterday the partnership took a while settling in, but the left-foot-right-foot combination, plus a decent breeze, gave Bath territorial dominance while James worked out how to unpick the Harlequins defence.
In fact, it took the world cup-winning fly-half 25 minutes during which David Barnes replaced prop David Flatman to make his 200th league appearance for Bath, before James first came close to working Matt Banahan into the corner and then set up Barkley to side-step his way under the posts.
The conversion and a penalty gave the centre all 10 points scored by Bath in the half, but he missed two other kicks and for a while that began to look expensive as Nick Evans, the Harlequins fly-half, was on target just before the interval.
First Bath lost their captain, Michael Claassens, to the sin-bin for a tackle on the England fly-half Danny Care which was not only high but early. Evans landed the kick and there were jitters in the Bath camp until Mears and Bell performed their calming double act.
