Rampant Gloucester run in 10 tries past Bath for record Premiership win

Gloucester can continue to dream. This 10-try bonus-point victory, secured by half-time against unbelievably ragged West Country rivals, maintains their hope of the playoffs in what promises to be a fiendishly close finale in the top-four race. Nothing less than five points would have done, realistically, after Northampton’s nerve-jangling win against Harlequins on Friday. But this was sheer destruction, and Gloucester’s biggest margin of victory in the Premiership.

With third-placed Harlequins facing two difficult matches against Exeter and Gloucester, anything is possible. Having lifted themselves into fifth, a point behind Saints, the Cherry and Whites will carry confidence from this astonishingly one-side derby triumph.

Bath remain rock-bottom, swatted aside with ludicrous ease. The incoming head coach, Johann van Graan, will arrive from Munster in the summer with a job on his hands. There is no shortage of raw material, especially in the backs, and world-class back-rowers such as Sam Underhill and Taulupe Faletau are hardly weak links. But this collapse will be the most painful defeat of a traumatic season.

Last year, Eddie Jones memorably likened Mark Atkinson to a man running for a bus. He “had things falling out of his back pack” in his desperation to prove himself for the national side, Jones said, and the powerful Gloucester centre was in the thick of things from the off here. An intelligent delayed pass created an early opening for Louis Rees-Zammit, who unwisely chose to ignore teammates on either side.

Valeriy Morozov, the Bath prop, had been shown a yellow card for a high tackle after three minutes and a well-orchestrated Gloucester driving maul culminated in Matias Alemanno burrowing over, only for the