ON-THE-WHISTLE MATCH REPORT: Saracens 53-10 Bath

Bath Rugby dropped out of the Aviva Premiership top four following a 53-10 humbling at fellow play-off contenders Saracens on Sunday in what was Bath's biggest Premiership defeat in 15 years.

Bath needed a result against the high-flying Sarries after Leicester leapfrogged the Blue, Black and White into fourth following the Tigers' 36-31 win at Northampton on Saturday.

Saracens drew first blood at Allianz Park though when, after just four minutes, Jamie George bundled himself over the try line. England international Owen Farrell made no mistake with his conversion and Saracens had an early 7-0 lead.

George Ford could have got Bath back in the game soon after, but his opening penalty attempt on the afternoon, from 44 metres, had the distance but not the accuracy.

Ford, and Bath, were soon punished for the wide kick as Saracens extended their lead to 12-0 in the 12th minute.

A neat, controlled move from Saracens on a rapid breakaway ended with Alex Goode touching down in the corner. Farrell could not make it two succesful conversions from two though.

On the 19-minute mark Bath did finally manage to get on the scoresheet as Ford made amends for his earlier penalty miss by kicking through just outside the 22 for 12-3.

Not long later, with 25 minutes gone, Bath scored their first try of the match.

Anthony Watson, fresh from winning the Six Nations with England, raced through the defence of the men in black to make the game interesting again. Ford's conversion then had it as a two-point game at 12-10.

Bath were dealt a sucker punch on the stroke of half-time though. 

As Todd Blackadder's side were hoping to keep the game alive going into the break, Saracens scored their third try when Scottish winger Sean Maitland pounced onto a bouncing ball to extend the hosts lead to 17-10. Farrell missed the chance to extend their cushion to nine points.

The second half started in similar vein - in the sense that Saracens were on the front foot while Bath had to deal with going further behind, as Farrell scored a close-range penalty to make it 20-10 in favour of the Londoners. 

It went from bad to worse for Bath just before the hour mark when South African Schalk Brits secured the bonus point for Saracens and Farrell added two more points to get the home side in a comfortable 27-10 lead.

Saracens fans were waving club flags in the stands but, by the 63rd minute, Bath supporters probably just wanted to wave white flags when try number five was scored by Saracens club captain Brad Barrit to all-but end the match as a contest with the score at 32-10.

Chris Ashton rubbed salt into already-painful Bath wounds ten minutes from time with a try of his own, capped off with traditional swan dive and Farrell made no mistake with the follow-up kick. 39-10.

Billy Vunipola added to the humiliation five minutes from time when he went over and Farrell coverted for 46-10, but, sadly, there was still enough time for it to get even more unbearable for Bath.

Ashton doubled his personal tally when he intercepted a poor Ben Tapuai pass and swan-dived over again with the eight Saracens try of the afternoon to make the score a damaging 53-10 in favour of the hosts.