Bath sink London Irish with scintillating second half

Bath Rugby ran in five tries during a rousing second-half performance to beat London Irish 43-18 and move two points behind Aviva Premiership leaders Northampton Saints this evening.

Four penalties from George Ford helped Bath into 12-3 lead inside 28 minutes at the Recreation Centre.

However, Chris Noakes reduced the deficit to six points with another penalty, before a converted try from Tom Court gave the visitors a 13-12 lead at the break.

Court's effort only seemed to rile Mike Ford's charges, who emerged from the interval reinvigorated and led 26-13 inside 10 minutes of the restart when Leroy Houston and Jonathan Joseph both touched down converted tries.

It was one-way traffic from that point on as Matthew Banahan, Sam Burgess and Semesa Rokoduguni added further tries, with Ford missing his first conversion of the game after Rokodugini's effort.

Blair Cowan gave the dejected away fans something to cheer about with a consolation try in the dying moments, but the damage had already been done.