Bath had hoped that a return to Bordeaux might rekindle fond memories of their Champions Cup triumph in the city in 1998. Sadly for their cautiously optimistic supporters it was not to be as their hosts moved a big step closer to retaining the trophy they secured at Northampton’s expense in Cardiff last year.
Bordeaux Bègles will face Leinster in the final in Bilbao in three weeks’ time, propelled there by the familiar trio of their brilliant half-backs Maxime Lucu and Matthieu Jalibert and their star wing Louis Bielle-Biarrey, who scored one of his side’s five tries. Will Muir scored a brace in response and the contest was never less than gripping but England’s domestic champions could ultimately have few complaints.
In pretty much every area Bath were valiant and competitive without ever being the total masters of their own destiny. Alfie Barbeary, for example, had hoped this might be his day of days but a few too many errors were mixed in with his eye-catching carries. And against a Bordeaux side who are tough to break down through the middle and exceptionally fleet of foot when the game breaks up, Bath were left to play catch-up on the scoreboard from start to finish.
If the margin of victory was slightly harsh, varnished by a 77th-minute try from Temo Matiu, there was no doubt about which side finished the stronger. In Lucu the hosts also had a man for all situations, the shaven-headed scrum-half finishing with 18 points including a try of his own on a day of sunshine, showers and, ultimately, overflowing Gallic pride.
Kick-off was delayed by 10 minutes because of the large number of spectators still outside the ground, with the local trams en route to the stadium full to bursting. There was some pre-game rain around, too, not ideally what Bordeaux’s backline would have ordered. That said the French side also like to kick as a means of encouraging unstructured transition situations while there is nothing wrong with their lineout either.
Which left the scrum. In the absence of the experienced Jefferson Poirot, Bath had targeted that area with a view to draining some energy from the home pack. And after Bordeaux’s impressively fast start, which yielded a try inside two minutes for No 8 Marko Gazzotti, there came a tantalising glimmer of West Country hope.
Ben Spencer is so important to the way Bath operate and here was another prime example. With his side hammering away close to the line the scrum-half had the presence of mind to look up and deliver an inch perfect cross-field kick for Muir to gather and score wide on the left. Russell steered the conversion over via the right post and, just for a moment, the home support fell silent.
The noise swiftly cranked up again when Bielle-Biarrey, lurking out on the left, darted in for his 29th try in 27 games this season with nonchalant ease. On this occasion, though, Bath had their own lethal weapon out wide. Muir still had a lot to do following an electric midfield surge from Henry Arundell but finished magnificently, crashing through Lucu to score one-handed in the corner.
It was as good as it got for Bath for the rest of the first half. One little knock-on was all Bordeaux needed to start wresting back the initiative, first by cranking up the pressure with a scrum penalty and then by trusting their dagger-sharp half-backs. Lucu initially juggled an inside ball from a speeding Jalibert but kept the move going and reappeared to apply the coup de grace under the posts, despite Tom Dunn’s best efforts.
Behind 24-12 at the interval it was going to require something out of the ordinary to close the gap. Bath, though, started the second-half the stronger side, dragging Bordeaux through multiple close-range phases before, finally, the ball came right and the highly promising Louie Hennessey stretched over to score.
The question was whether Bath’s bench, with four forwards introduced en masse with 25 minutes left, could keep hammering away at the same intensity. Bordeaux had chances to put the game out of sight only for a couple of last-gasp fumbles to keep the visitors in it. But Bath were also struggling to keep their composure: first a promising lineout deep in opposition territory went astray before Ollie Lawrence collapsed a maul when Bath had looked set to win possession.
And then, to cap it all, came an agonising wait as the television match official pored over footage of what had originally appeared to be a match-clinching score for the reserve Bordeaux hooker Gaëtan Barlot. Eventually it was disallowed but, with Charlie Ewels in the sin-bin for collapsing the maul, Bordeaux soon scored their fourth try anyway through the famously big Ben Tameifuna. Tom Carr-Smith’s late try made no difference: the last English win in this tournament was in 2020 and the long wait continues.