Mike Ford sees concrete signs of Bath's improvement in their narrow defeat by Northampton at Franklin's Gardens

Everyone left Franklin’s Gardens relatively happy on Saturday night.

The
champions Northampton had a bonus-point victory, winning 31-24, and the
coming men of Bath had a losing bonus point, narrowly missing out on a draw
that would have been reward for being far superior in the final quarter.




“We dominated that last 25 minutes, didn’t we?” Mike Ford, the Bath head
coach, said.

“Last year we came here and didn’t get a point.

I’ll take
that.

” You could see his thinking because Bath had been outmuscled in a
first half that saw them go 14-0 down very swiftly, with Lu…