OA Saints suffered only their third Women’s Championship Division One South league defeat of the season after going down 10-0 to Bath.

They are still third in the table in what is already an excellent first-year at the level following last year's promotion but they were given a masterclass on how to manage a game by their illustrious hosts.

The first-half had ended scoreless although the Saints had played some of the best rugby of the year so far, certainly with ball in hand.

Where they, and indeed Bath, fell down was once they got into the opposition 22.

After the interval, they continued to press but were kept out by some strong and sometimes frantic defending.

And Bath made them pay for a failure to take points from those periods with clever tactical play, first using the phases and then secondly with probing kicks, to score two unconverted tries.

OAs finish 2019 with one more league game at home to Hove, the team directly below them in the table, on Sunday.