A late try by England centre Mike Tindall settled Bath's nerves and took them
two places up the Zurich Premiership table.
They also denied the Londoners the chance of a precious bonus point in a
frantic nine minutes of extra injury time played out mainly on the Bath try
line.
In the first-half Bath looked as if they would win even more comfortably than
they eventually did as they established a 16-3 interval lead thanks to three
Olly Barkley penalties and a try, also converted by Barkley, from Ireland centre
Kevin Maggs.
Bath, beset by injury problems for so long, were at least able to name the
same line-up that started the cup tie at Wasps last Sunday.
It was no surprise though that Mike Catt failed to make the bench but Bath
have long got used to taking the field without their talismanic fly-half.
Quins took something of a gamble by including England wing Dan Luger for the
first time since last April - he had only managed 36 minutes of second team
rugby since damaging cruciate knee ligaments in the Singapore Sevens.
Quins did go into the game having completed an 18-9 victory over Bath on
November 2 but the form book counted for nothing as the home side ripped into
the visitors from the first whistle.
Barkley and Paul Burke swapped penalties early on before Maggs came off his
right foot in the 15th minute to score by the posts and Barkley added two more
penalties before the break the final effort from nearly 50 metres deep into
injury time.
However it was Quins who came out for the second-half with the more purposeful
attitude and Bath got an attack of the jitters as Burke kicked two penalties by
the 50th minute.
With Jonathan Humphreys off the field on the hour Bath's normally reliable
lineout began to fall apart and the rest of their game began to suffer too as
passes were dropped and their self discipline let them down.
Tindall's try on 75 minutes came out of the blue, created by Barkley's clever
chip which was collected by the centre at full tilt.
The faintest hint of a dummy to Iain Balshaw fooled the Quins defence to such
a degree that Tindall was left with a clear run for the posts - leaving Barkley
with the easiest of conversions.
Teams
Bath: Balshaw, Danielli,
Maggs, Tindall, Voyce, Barkley,
Cooper, Barnes, Humphries, Mallett, Borthwick, Grewcock,
G. Thomas, Vander, N. Thomas.
Replacements: A. Williams, Long, Galasso, Perry, Malone,
Scaysbrook, Beattie.
Tries: Maggs, Tindall.
Cons: Barkley 2.
Pens: Barkley 3.
Harlequins: N. Williams, Jewell, Greenwood, Bell, Luger, Burke,
Duncombe, Leonard, Fuga, Gomez, Davison, Codling, Vos,
Sanderson, Diprose.
Replacements: Tiatia, Dawson, Evans, Miall, Bemand, Gollings,
Satala.
Pens: Burke 3.
Att: 8,200
Ref: Chris White (RFU).
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