Bath stunned as Exeter head for final after last-ditch drama caps comeback

By Michael Aylwin at the Recreation Ground • June 13, 2026 • Sport

Chiefs staged a jaw-dropping second-half revival to win 27-26 and make it to Twickenham to play Northampton on Saturday

For the first time since the greatest game in Premiership history, the away team have won a playoff. This was not a comeback to match that of Harlequins at Bristol in 2021, but Exeter looked every bit as dead and buried at half-time. And then a new team took to the field for the second half. And so we will have a new champion. Bath had so dominated the first half, their lead was the least they might have expected. But in the second half, they looked utterly bewildered, like a golfer who just cannot understand why he can no longer hit the ball straight. Where they had once smashed through collisions, they were now staggering off rampant Exeter runners. Same sport, apparently – they just couldn’t play it any more. They mounted one last attack, picking and going, picking and going. Bath had not been awarded a single penalty in the second half. The referee was not going to start then. How they could have done with Finn Russell to land a drop goal, but the Scotland fly-half had not quite recovered. Santi Carreras is a genius, but he has played only occasionally at fly-half this season and he never called for it. Bath could have whipped the ball wide, where Joe Cokanasiga waited in acres, but they kept it close, their confidence shot, and the Chiefs held them up to herald the final whistle. Exeter were inspired by a new front row. How such details can transform a match. And so we had another unlikely comeback win to breathe further life into this most vibrant of competitions. If rugby matches were won by sheer force of will (and they quite often are), Bath would have been out of sight by half-time. As it is, they led by 26-10 at the break, which is something to be getting on with, four tries to one. But the Chiefs were subjected to a form of full-frontal assault for almost the entirety of the first half. Exeter did well to turn round as close as they did. The visitors crossed the line three times themselves in that period, Campbell Ridl the first to do so of the match, in only the third minute, but Henry Slade’s long pass to him was clearly forward. Slade was over himself 20 minutes later, but Greg Fisilau could not quite slip his reverse flick away before his foot clipped the touchline after Paul Brown-Bampoe’s run down the right. When Exeter did cross legitimately, another couple of minutes later, it was spectacular, Christ Tshiunza galloping through Bath’s midfield, then stepping his way round Carreras as if he were a winger, not the 6ft 6in flanker-cum-lock he really is. Alas, in between Slade’s contributions there, he spent 10 minutes in the bin, when Bath started to build a lead. Roared on by a Rec bathed in splendid sunshine, it was virtually nonstop attack. Bath’s set piece was dominant, Alfie Barbeary was scattering defenders, the midfield subtlety and power in perfect balance. The tries followed inevitably. Slade’s fairly blatant offence round the fringes of the latest Bath attack, in the 11th minute, is what earned him his time in the bin. Tom Dunn tapped the penalty, and Beno Obano would not be stopped from the next ruck. Same idea for Bath’s second, just before Slade returned. Barbeary smashed his way to a few feet short of an attacking lineout, and Thomas du Toit, fresh from his hat-trick last weekend, added another, this time carrying half the Exeter pack over the line with him from five metres out. So much for brute force. Bath were showing plenty in the way of sleight of hand, and so it told just shy of the hour, after Tshiunza’s try and an earlier penalty from Harvey Skinner pulled the Chiefs to within five. Tom de Glanville slipped a pass to release Ollie Lawrence. His pass on the run found Cokanasiga for Bath’s third. Five minutes later, they had a fourth. A big Bath scrum had won penalty advantage, so Ben Spencer was free to send a speculative cross-kick to the left-hand corner where Henry Arundell somehow grounded, a split-second before he crossed the dead-ball line. When the shift in momentum happened, it was spectacular. Exeter changed their entire front row and in so doing changed everything. Ben Hammersley was over for the first of three tries that were part of 17 unanswered points. Just shy of the hour, a Skinner break sent the suddenly ferocious Fisilau to a couple of metres short, felled by a brilliant Josh Bayliss tackle. No matter, Fisilau sprang to his feet and forced his way over a couple of phases later. A particularly harsh yellow card for Cokanasiga, who had every chance of intercepting, at the start of the final quarter was preceded by a try of brute force again, this one for Ethan Burger, one of the supersubs in Exeter’s front row. Comeback consummated. The Chiefs have never lost a playoff. Now, against Northampton at Twickenham next weekend, they have a chance to become the first team to win the Prem from third place. We have seen everything else. Why not?

Source: The Guardian