The triumph of a transformed club

Bath Rugby secured their second trophy of the season on Friday night with a commanding 37-12 win over Lyon to turn up the noise of talk of securing a treble.

- John Evely

How things have changed at Bath, sitting bottom of the Premiership table three years ago before Johann van Graan arrived, to Challenge Cup and Premiership Rugby Cup winners in 2024/25, with a home semi-final in the league still to come.

The biggest compliment you can give the English side on the basis of Friday night's display is they made the difficult job of winning a first major trophy since 2008 look routine, winning by the biggest margin in the final of the second tier competition since 1998. Bath delivered on their favourites tag to run in four tries through Tom Dunn, Max Ojomoh, Beno Obano and Ben Spencer. A mature Finn Russell, who may be one of the elite number 10s in world rugby but has very little silverware at club level to show for all the highlight reel moments, added 17 points with the boot as he proved to British and Irish Lions head coach that he had the game management skills to be his Test fly-half this summer out in Australia.