Bath thrash Gloucester for place in cup semi-final

Alfie Barbeary's two tries either side of the break pushed Bath firmly clear

European Challenge Cup quarter-final

Bath (33) 61

Tries: De Glanville, Dunn, Griffin, Spencer, Barbeary 2, Coetzee, Hill, Carr-Smith Cons: Russell 8

Gloucester (19) 26

Tries: Carreras, Singleton, Morris, Ludlow Cons: Carreras 3

Bath charged past Gloucester into the European Challenge Cup semi-finals, surpassing 60 points in another dominant display at the Recreation Ground.

The hosts scored five tries to Gloucester's three in an end-to-end first half, with Tom de Glanville and Ben Spencer among Bath's scorers.

Alfie Barbeary's tries either side of the break pushed Bath 21 points clear and Jaco Coetzee and Ted Hill added further scores as the hosts stifled their West Country neighbours.

The Premiership leaders will now face Edinburgh away in three weeks' time for a place in the final and remain firmly in the fight for another trophy this season.

When these two sides met in the Premiership three weeks ago, eight tries were traded in the first half and it was a similarly high-scoring affair on this occasion.

Bath started rapidly as full-back Ciaran Donoghue ghosted through midfield and after Will Muir came within inches of the line, the ball was recycled back for De Glanville to stretch over.

Gloucester retaliated as Santiago Carreras touched down a lovely cross-field kick from Gareth Anscombe - who had been out injured and was making his first Gloucester appearance since before the Six Nations,

Tom Dunn surged over from a driving maul to restore the hosts' lead and Finn Russell's neat pass then put Ross Molony through a gap, before Archie Griffin finished under the posts for a third to make it 19-7.

Gloucester stayed in sight as Jack Singleton charged through a tackle and over, and the visitors had Bath under pressure when flanker Hill was shown yellow for failing to roll away from a maul.

But it was Bath who capitalised as Muir gathered a high ball and chased his own kick before passing back inside to Ethan Staddon, who fed Spencer to score.

Tom de Glanville scored one of Bath's five first-half tries

Gloucester narrowed the gap again as their backs stretched Bath down the right, then whipped the ball left with Jake Morris on the overlap running over.

Yet Bath went in with their tails up as Barbeary kicked through and dived on a loose ball before it went dead for a fifth try.

After conceding his side were overpowered by Bath's replacements in their previous meeting, Cherry and Whites boss George Skivington made six changes immediately after the break - tellingly with five in the forwards - but it could not stem Bath's tide.

Barbeary bulldozed through multiple tacklers and over to strike a crushing blow before replacement Coetzee added a seventh, and Hill then got the eighth from close range.

Lewis Ludlow pulled one back for Gloucester to ensure they put some points on the board in the second half but the last word still went to Bath, who piled forward until the end and Tom Carr-Smith ran in a ninth with two minutes left on the clock.

Bath director of rugby Johann van Graan told BBC Radio Bristol:

"I thought it was a complete performance.

"I thought the way that we controlled the game in all areas. I thought our contesting was really good in the line-out, our breakdown battle was a really good contest but we got into that 22 we were ruthless.

"We just kept our head, not everything went our way. The thing I'm most impressed by was the mentality of us, to play last in this European weekend on a Sunday afternoon at 17:30 – all credit to the players and staff and supporters."

Gloucester director of rugby George Skivington told BBC Radio Gloucestershire:

"I thought we prepared well coming into the game, we'll have to have a look at that because we were really poor today, there's no getting away from it.

"We made a lot of errors and Bath were comprehensively better than us.

"I think we created chances, the tale is similar in that first half to when we came down here last time in that we didn't take them.

"I don't think we won any facet of the day unfortunately and our inaccuracy let us down. The second half was really poor and we're not going to hide away from that."

Bath: Donoghue; De Glanville, Redpath, Butt, Muir; Russell, Spencer (c); Obano, Dunn, Griffin; Roux, Molony, Hill, Staddon, Barbeary.

Replacements: Annett, Van Wyk, Du Toit, Bayliss, Reid, Carr-Smith, Ojomoh, Coetzee.

Sin-bin: Hill (27 mins)

Gloucester: Carreras; Wade, Harris (c), Butler, Morris; Anscombe, Englefield; Knight, Singleton, Gotovtsev; Clarke, Jordan, Gwynne, Taylor, Ackermann.

Replacements: Blake, Rapava Ruskin, Fasogbon, Thomas, Ludlow, Clement, Williams, Atkinson.

Referee: Sam Grove-White