The Gladiators welcomed Somerset Vikings to Farmborough Rec last Saturday in the West of England league. Somerset have been one of the stand out teams this year and the game offered an opportunity for Bath to test their mettle against one of the early league leaders
The Gladiators have seen their injury crisis ease over the last couple of weeks and Matt Bodey was able to welcome a few of the squad back for the game. The game started at a high tempo and Somerset quickly demonstrated their attacking threat with a break down the right in the 9th minute for the games’ opening try. Bath responded and were quickly level through a Jake Brookes try in the 15th minute before 2 quick-fire tries by Somerset to open up a gap.
The Gladiators continued to probe and thought they had reduced the deficit in the 25th minute but Miquel Tomas was held up on the line. However, Somerset had no answer for the pace of Cam Taylor 5 minutes later as he broke from his 30 metre line to beat a number of defenders over the try line. Somerset once again responded with a final try of the half to lead 10-20 at half time.
As the second half got underway, Somerset began to show why many fancy them for the title and quickly added 2 more tries to extend their lead to 10-30 before the game saw both teams trading try for try with each team scoring 2 tries each before Somerset ended the game as a contest with 4 unanswered tries at the end to take a 22-56 victory.
it was a score that didn’t tell the full story of the game but it was hard not to give the plaudits to a Somerset team who will probably go on to win the league this season. The game was overshadowed though by a severe injury to Harry Broker following a tackle midway through the second half. He was forced to leave the field by ambulance and was later diagnosed with a broken hip and femur.
Commenting after the game Bath Chairman, Dean Buchan added “Full credit to Somerset, they were just better than us today. they had a game plan, stuck to it and it proved successful. More important than the result is the injury to their player, which doesn’t look too good. It’s never nice when a player is injured and while we don’t really know the diagnosis right now we hope he makes a full recovery.”