Bath's stand-in captain Alex Crockett scored the game's only try

Bath (13) 23
Try: Crockett
Pens: Barkley (4), Berne
Cons: Barkley

Newcastle (3) 11
Try: Winter
Pens: May (2)

Bath made light of injury absences and having four players on international duty and three stars injured to beat Newcastle at the Rec.

Stand-in Bath captain Alex Crockett scored the game's only try on 19 minutes but four Olly Barkley penalties put the home side out of the reach.

Shaun Berne added another as Barkley had treatment before the break.

Barkley's kicking stretched Bath's lead and Russell Winter's pushover try for Newcastle came too late.

• Bath head coach Steve Meehan:

"We rarely got into our game.

"Given all the changes and given the emotional and physical effort attached to the win over Bristol and the short turnaround afterwards, yes I am pleased.

"It was an untidy sort of game but one that showed an awful lot of character."

• Newcastle director of rugby John Fletcher:

"The difference in the game was the inside backs of Bath and the way they controlled the game. It's always tough when your own backs go away en masse and that's the area where we were found lacking.

"We lost direction, especially when we had to replace our fly-half, Steve Jones, with a scrum-half, James Grindal.

"As for the rest of the game I thought we had parity in the set piece, territory and opportunity."

Bath: Maddock, Stephenson, Crockett (capt), Berne, Higgins, Barkley, Claassens, Bell, Dixon, Jarvis, Short, Grewcock, Goodman, Faamatuainu, Browne
Replacements: Hawkins, Ion, Purdy, Feaunati, Baxter, Fuimaono-Sapolu, Cheeseman

Newcastle: May, Phillips, Dillon, Tait, Rudd, Jones, Dickson, Golding, Thompson, Hayman, Parling, Sorenson, Wilson, Woods, Dowson (capt).
Replacements: Vickers, McDonnell, Swinson, Winter, Grindal, Shaw, Visser.