THE REC — There was a kind of nobility in Johann van Graan’s defence of his Bath players for refusing a drop at goal at the end of their 27-26 defeat by Exeter Chiefs in Saturday’s Prem semi-final.
But it doesn’t fully account for the deficiency in preparation and execution that has condemned last season’s champions to the familiar hollow feeling of being bereft of a trophy.
And Bath’s owners, Bruce Craig and Sir James Dyson, and the club’s fans, are entitled to demand an explanation.
It is easy to say that it looked like a simple task for Bath’s fly-half Santiago Carreras, a high-quality player, to demand the ball from his forwards and knock it over the bar, 15 metres away and directly in front of him.
And two superstar ex-players Brian O’Driscoll and Sam Warburton on TV did say it – as did Stuart Barnes, the former Bath and England fly-half, who was next to me in the press seats, and calling loudly for the drop as 41 phases of mostly pick-and-go unfolded to the dramatic climax of Exeter holding Bath up, and going through to next week’s final against Northampton Saints.
"Under the sticks, you've got to step up."Brian O'Driscoll and Sam Warburton discuss Bath's decision to turn down a drop goal attempt at the death pic.twitter.com/EoLpQLTia2
— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) June 13, 2026Barnes nailed a late drop goal himself to win a Pilkington Cup final against Harlequins at Twickenham in 1992.
Carreras himself was a first-hand witness to one of the great drop-goal performances, when George Ford knocked three over for England against Argentina at the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
On this day, Kepu Tuipulotu and Billy Sela were two of the Bath forwards making the drives, spurning the drop.
Aged 20 and 21, respectively, they had a lot of responsibility on their young shoulders.
The longer-in-the-tooth front-rowers Thomas du Toit, Tom Dunn and Beno Obano, and second row and some-time captain, Charlie Ewels, were all off the field, substituted by Van Graan.
Still, pick-and-go is the Bath way, and the opposing head coach, Rob Baxter of Exeter, said he could see the sense in it, as a percentage play that has worked for them before.
The trouble was, it didn’t work this time, so the percentage was zero when Bath needed it the most.
“That’s sport,” said Van Graan, although while he “backed” the ability of Carreras to land the drop, he wasn’t sure of whether Carreras had demanded the ball and been refused, or simply didn’t call for it.
So, speculating as we must, there were maybe two factors on Carreras’s mind.
Across his career of eight years and more than 180 appearances for Argentina, Jaguares (in Super Rugby), Gloucester and Bath, he has never dropped a goal. Not one.
Either Carreras doesn’t fancy the drop as a tactic, or he and his teams don’t rate it.
Santiago Carreras is yet to score a drop-goal in his career (Photo: Getty)He might also have been compromised by Van Graan having substituted Ben Spencer, a few minutes before the end, as the captain and scrum-half would have been a valuable second voice.
Jonny Wilkinson would be another likely to be scratching his head at all of this.
The best known practitioner of drop goals made 36 for England alone – most famously the extra-time winner in the 2003 World Cup final. Not that all his attempts in that match went over.
The World Cup in 2007 included a notorious Bath-like snub of the drop, when Richie McCaw’s All Blacks kept pummelling unsuccessfully at the line instead, and lost their quarter-final against France in Cardiff.
Yet the drop goal has had huge upsides on other occasions.
At the 1999 World Cup, Steve Larkham pulled out the first of his Test career to win a semi-final for Australia at Twickenham, while South Africa’s Jannie de Beer made his extraordinary five-timer to knock out England in Paris in the same tournament.
From Rob Andrew against Australia in South Africa in 1995, through to Freddie Burns in the Premiership final of 2022, to win it for Leicester Tigers… they all picked off three points when the pressure was at its most intense.
Jonny Wilkinson knocked over the most famous drop-goal of them all in 2003 (Photo: Getty)Another easy observation is that it might have been different if Bath’s million-pound man, Finn Russell, had been fit to play.
The eminent fly-half has a calf strain, and while he trained a little last Tuesday and for most of the session on Thursday, he did not make it.
But, guess what? Russell has landed precisely one dropped goal – for Bath against Sale Sharks at The Rec in March 2024, to help turn a match tied at 24-all into a home win – in his 350 senior appearances since 2013.
Whatever the case, Craig and Dyson, who have their seats directly behind the posts Carreras did not aim for, have some obvious questions to ask – if they choose to do so.
Read more
Exclusive: ‘It all came crashing down’: Northampton’s Tommy Freeman on battling rugby burnout Big read: The phone call that changed Saracens foreverAt least to ascertain whether Van Graan has persuasive data to justify the pick-and-go, or rather, if it was just acceptable as a gut feel shared by multiple players in a sport that, unlike the NFL, is not broken down into play by ordered play.
What we do know is that Craig has committed tens of millions of pounds to Bath since he became involved in 2010, and the club won a first Premiership title in 29 years last season, and they looked good for another final in the early stages of the current campaign.
But with just two wins in their last six matches since late April, they emphatically fell out of champion form – just as Craig and Dyson are perusing blueprints for the blue, black and whites to build a spectacular new stadium at The Rec.
If and when the gleaming new stands arise, they might consider painting a large arrow behind the posts, with a slogan of “drop here in case of emergency”.
Hence then, the article about everyone at bath should demand answers for baffling semi final defeat was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Everyone at Bath should demand answers for baffling semi-final defeat )
Also on site :
- Marler Clark Urges Parents to Stop Using Nara Organics Whole Milk Organic Powdered Infant Formula Amid Multistate Infant Botulism Outbreak -- Product Sold Nationwide at Target
- La generación Z es más renuente al riesgo. Los expertos dicen que eso perjudica sus relaciones amorosas
- What Happened to Jen Hamilton? Influencer Hints at Divorce in Crying Video