Bath produced a ferocious bonus point victory over Newcastle at Kingston Park to keep alive their Aviva Premiership title bid . Sam Burgess made his first Premiership start at number six and , despite making a few handling errors , impressed in his new position . Bath head coach Mike Ford praised Burgess 's efforts following the game and stated 'you 've seen the future tonight ' , with regards to the former rugby league star 's role going forward . Bath went for it from the start and were rewarded with three first-half tries and a fourth early in the second period as they recorded a 29-19 victory . Bath centre Ollie Devoto barges over for the opening try at Kingston Park . Sam Burgess , making his first start for Bath in the back row , makes an early career against Newcastle . Bath fly half George Ford fires over a conversion from the sideline at Kingston Park . Fifteen points were rattled up in the first 16 minutes of the match as Bath , for whom England 's George Ford delivered a fly-half masterclass , collected a brace of tries through Ollie Devoto and Semesa Rokoduguni . Newcastle responded with a Sinoti Sinoti try but Anthony Watson 's score on the stroke of half-time earned Bath a 19-13 lead at the interval , and then Matt Banahan went over in the 42nd minute to give the visitors their bonus point . Bath are now six points behind Premiership leaders Northampton in the table and four above third-placed Saracens . Rory Clegg 's fourth-minute penalty after Bath dropped the scrum gave Newcastle the lead , but it did not last long with Ford putting a penalty in the corner which led to a scrum . From that set-piece , No 8 Leroy Houston picked up and Ford fed Devoto for the big centre to score under the posts . Ford slotted over the conversion to make it 7-3 in the ninth minute and he went to the corner again with another penalty soon after , which led to centre Jonathan Joseph 's long cut-out pass finding Rokoduguni to score in the corner in the 16th minute . Bath winger Semesa Rokoduguni dives over for a try following a sweeping attack from the visitors . The extra points were missed on that occasion and Clegg was able to cut the difference to six with a second penalty in the 23rd minute . Rokoduguni crossed again in the 27th minute but after checking with the TMO , referee JP Doyle ruled out the score because of a Bath knock-on close to the line . The Falcons made the best use of the let-off with a try from Sinoti in the 31st minute . The winger looked to be going nowhere with a run from right to left but he brushed off four successive tackles with an aggressive run along the touchline to score in the corner . Clegg 's conversion put Newcastle 13-12 in front , but they could not hang on to the lead with Bath scoring their third try right on half-time . And what a cracker it was with Ford using a subtle delayed pass to allow full-back Watson to scythe through under the posts for another converted try . Anthony Watson runs a sublime line off Devoto to score Bath 's fourth try of the night . Bath 's bonus point score came just two minutes after the break with Banahan sailing through a gap which was made by the dummy runner . Ford converted but Newcastle replied with a 47th-minute Clegg penalty five minutes later . Tom Catterick added another penalty in the 68th minute to put Newcastle in losing bonus point range at 26-19 after the Falcons had pummelled away with successive line-out drives and Bath replacement Carl Fearns was sin-binned for dragging it down . The majority of the 7,492 crowd were not happy with the decision to take the points but with just over 10 minutes left it looked the right one , until Ford kicked a 73rd-minute penalty to deny Newcastle their bonus .
Ollie Devoto , Semesa Rokoduguni , Anthony Watson and Matt Banahan all crossed for Bath . Bath fly nine George Ford added half points from the boot . Newcastle replied through a Sinoti Sinoti try .