This was one of the great European club rugby nights. There did not deserve to be a loser but Ted Hill’s try four minutes from time broke Northampton hearts and booked Bath’s place in the Champions Cup semi-finals.

While there is a clash of French rugby royalty in Toulouse and Bordeaux on Sunday, you would have to go a long way to find a better club match played anywhere on the planet this season. Lord knows this competition has its faults, but on evenings like this all is forgiven. The Rec rarely rocks like this, but at the end Bath supporters stood applauding both their team and the opposition for the spectacle they had just witnessed.

“I have been in rugby for a long time and this ranks as one of the best I have been involved in. What a fightback,” Johann van Graan, the Bath head of rugby, said. “We know they start fast but we always knew we could come back into this game. But it could easily have gone the other way. That was some performance from Northampton, but I am so proud of the team. We are tough to beat. We don’t know how to give up.”

Saints led from the second minute and held 28-7 and 35-14 advantages in the first half, playing rugby from the gods. But Bath never wobbled. Guided by the magical Finn Russell, they ground Northampton down through their close-range pick-and-go game with Guy Pepper and Alfie Barbeary particularly prominent. With eight minutes remaining, Henry Pollock, who scored the game’s opening try, was sin-binned, which will bear a lot of scrutiny, allowing Hill to seize the glory.

It was rugby at its absolutely zenith, particularly because there was such a contrast of styles. Bath dominated much of the contest on the gain line, both in the carry and defence, but Saints played the role of matador, dodging and weaving to leave the home side chasing ghosts for long periods. Game of Thrones fans may relate it to the Mountain vs the Viper battle where the upstart runs rings around the bigger man before ultimately having his skull crushed.

“One result doesn’t necessarily define a season, the next six weeks does,” Phil Dowson, the Northampton director of rugby said. “We worked incredibly hard – you can’t coach effort and heart and a pair of b------s so I am incredibly proud of that but on the balance of play we didn’t do enough to win it.”

Referee Andrew Brace made a brave but correct decision to sin-bin Miles Reid inside two minutes and Northampton immediately took advantage through a close range Pollock try before Fraser Dingwall sailed under the posts after some sumptuous handling from Archie McParland and Rory Hutchinson.

Back came Bath with their favourite party piece: the close-range tap penalty. Tom Dunn took it and with the assist of a monster latch from Charlie Ewels. This was the grinding contest Bath wanted but Saints refused to engage in. Instead they sliced Bath open again with slick handling from prop Danilo Fischetti, Dingwall and Smith to put second row Tom Lockett over in the corner Their fourth try was a result of a lucky bounce off Smith’s charged down kick but the skill level not to mention the situational awareness was once again as Josh Kemeny finished off a flowing move.

Then came a typical piece of Russell magic. Where other rugby players view a bouncing ball with the same panic levels of finding a mouse in a bread-bin, Russell took the opportunity to showcase his footballing skills, taking three touches with either foot before grounding the ball.

That reduced the gap to 28-14 but momentum never settled as winger Ollie Sleightholme, on his 100th appearance for the club, barrelled through thee Bath defenders to score Saints’ fifth.

It would be doing Bath a massive disservice to suggest they were all route one as they demonstrated with their third try which was strike play perfection. The scrum was solid and Redpath felt Russell, who faked pumped once to draw a gap to send Henry Arundell scurrying under the posts.

Then right on half-time came a try that both coaches identified as a key momentum shift as shortly after Smith missed a penalty to touch, replacement Francois van Wyk was driven over. Russell missed leaving the game tantalising poised at 35-26 to the visitors. After the madness of the first half, Smith took the first conservative decision of the game, by kicking a penalty in front of the posts. However, Saints were reduced to 14 men when JJ van der Mescht was sin-binned following repeated offences in the 22. Bath kicked to the corner and piled what seemed like half of Somerset into the maul with replacement Kepu Tuipulotu grounding the ball. Russell’s conversion made it a five-point game.

Another Smith penalty gave Saints a modicum of breathing space but that was wiped out by Russell’s penalty before a grandstand finish featuring Pollock, inevitably, and Hill’s try which will be celebrated long into the night.

Match details

Scoring sequence 0-5, Pollock try; 0-7 Smith con; 0-12, Dingwall try; 0-14, Smith con; 5-14, Dunn try; 7-14, Russell con; 7-19, Lockett try; 7-21, Smith con; 7-26, Kemeny try; 7-28, Smith con; 12-28, Russell try; 14-28, Russell con; 14-33, Sleightholme try; 14-35, Smith con; 19-35, Arundell try; 21-35, Russell con; 26-35, Van Wyk try; 26-38, Smith con; 31-38, Tuipulotu try; 33-38, Russell con; 33-41, Smith pen; 36-41 Russell pen; 41-41, Hill try; 43-41, Russell con.

Bath T De Glanville (S Carreras, 52); H Arundell, O Lawrence, C Redpath, W Muir; F Russell, B Spencer (B van der Linde, 74); B Obano (F van Wyk, 29), T Dunn, (K Tuipulotu, 52), V Sela (T Du Toit, 47), Q Roux (T Hill, 47), C Ewels, G Pepper, S Underhill (A Barbeary, 32), M Reid (R Molony, 66).

Northampton Saints G Furbank; T Freeman, R Hutchinson (T Litchfield, 74), F Dingwall, O Sleightholme (G Hendy, 66); F Smith, A McParland (A Mitchell, 59); D Fischetti (E Iyogun, 47), C Langdon (C Wright, 17), C Kundiona (E Millar-Mills, 47), T Lockett (Van der Mescht, 68), JJ van der Mescht (E Prowse, 67), J Kemeny, T Pearson (C Chick, 27), H Pollock.

Referee Andrew Brace. Attendance 14,509.