Bath set up Premiership final with Northampton after seeing off Sale

Bath are into the Premiership final for the first time in nine years but they are not a team who make life a breeze for their supporters. At times it was Sale who looked the side most likely to meet Northampton at Twickenham on Saturday, only for a try six minutes from time from Niall Annett and 16 points from the boot of Finn Russell to keep them on track for the promised land.

Maybe it was the nerves associated with such a big occasion but not until the closing couple of minutes could Bath’s fans remotely relax. It is 28 years since their favourites were last crowned champions of England and the huge roar at the final whistle showed exactly what it meant to everyone connected with the club.

Sale, though, can be proud of their effort, not just here but over the past few weeks. They have been confounding expectations for a while and almost added another classic ambush to add to their growing collection until Bath finally seized the initiative when it mattered most and Annett’s score dissolved the growing tension.

The onus was always going to be on Sale to find ways to pierce the tangible air of local confidence. Easier said than done, particularly with Bath enjoying plentiful early possession and making some early scrummaging dents. The home side’s momentum was duly rewarded when Ted Hill collected a Ben Spencer chip to score in the right corner after the tall flanker and Russell had both made good attacking ground in the buildup.

Some respite materialised in the form of a chargedown and a subsequent soft penalty against Bath which gave the Sharks the opportunity to kick to the corner and set up a driving maul from which Ben Curry secured his side’s first points of the afternoon and required Bath to take a fresh guard.

They duly did so, Will Muir firing in a low 50-22 past George Ford and Beno Obano claiming his side’s second try at the bottom of another close-range forward rumble. When a reversed penalty for head-on-head contact against Sam Dugdale enabled Russell to extend the lead to 18-5, the warning signs already seemed to be flashing.

The Sharks’ maul, though, was enjoying plenty of joy and Bath again had no answer as the visitors drove left and powered their hooker Tommy Taylor over. Even without several tight forwards, including Hyron Andrews who failed a late fitness test, Sale were never going to lie down meekly.

A nice conversion and a further penalty from Ford duly dragged the Sharks back to 18-15 down at the interval, putting the ball back in their opponents’ court. When the two teams met at the same venue in the latter stages of the regular season it was a final-quarter surge from Bath that secured a 42-24 win after the scores had been tied at 24-24 with 17 minutes remaining.

This time, though, Bath seemed to be waiting for something to happen and Sale, suddenly fighting back at scrum time, pulled themselves back to 18-18 with a second Ford penalty. Russell responded with three points of his own after Sale had collapsed an attacking maul but the tension was now real.

The stakes cranked up another notch with Tom O’Flaherty’s 52^nd minute score after a fizzing Russell pass was too hot for Joe Cokanasiga to hold and Sale launched an immediate counterattack from around the halfway line. Joe Carpenter’s chip found space and O’Flaherty was first there to gather and score.

Would there be another twist? Of course there would. With one of two key Sale scrummagers having been replaced, the referee Luke Pearce started to reward Bath once more and Russell landed a fine angled penalty from 45 metres to put the hosts back in front. A long range drop-goal attempt from the Scotland fly-half narrowly missed its target but Annett’s late maul score ensured it did not matter.