Bath’s European Challenge Cup victory a ‘long time coming’

While Lyon scored first through Ethan Dumortier’s try, Bath took the lead with Dunn and Max Ojomoh scores and navigated a tricky end to the first half when they were briefly reduced to 13 players following Sam Underhill and Will Muir’s yellow cards.

Arno Botha pulled another back for Lyon but Bath ended the night comfortable winners as tries from Beno Obano and Spencer took them out of sight.

Lyon coach Karim Ghezal said one of Bath’s yellow cards was “rather dodgy” but that he would not complain about refereeing.

“We didn’t score when they were down to 13. They had two yellow cards,” he said.

“Bath is a very strong team and we knew they were very effective so we need to face the facts.”

Bath now face another huge two weeks as the Premiership season reaches its conclusion.

They travel to Saracens on Saturday, 31 May for the final round of the competition, before a home semi-final at the Recreation Ground on Friday, 6 June for a place in the Twickenham final.

Van Graan said the Challenge Cup trophy was a credit to every player a staff member involved at the club, and that they are enjoying their “journey” together.

“We’ll enjoy [Friday], we’ll enjoy what this trophy represents – incredible hard work by a lot of people – and then we’ll come back on Tuesday morning and we’ll move on again,” Van Graan said.

“We’re not chasing anything, we are enjoying our journey together.”

Additional reporting by Alistair Durden.