There was still time for an inventive Saracens to fashion another score but as for much of the afternoon, a lack of precision let them down and Bath, the pack to the fore, closed out the game. So, the team languishing 10th in the Guinness Premiership advanced to the final against Clermont Auvergne and they will hope that talks can breach the impasse over next season's Heineken Cup. Beat Clermont in a month's time and a spot in Europe's premier competition could yet be the prize.

"I'm hoping that some of the reports I've been reading come true and we are able to have a European competition," said Bath's head coach Steve Meehan. "The administrators have got to get their heads together because European competition brings something else to the season." Bath's defence had clung on for much of the second half and prior to Scarbrough's late score, Kris Chesney had been held up over the line.

For all Saracens' second-half efforts, however, it was the defensive lapses of the first that had left them chasing the game, conceding three tries in 10 minutes. A fourth by Shaun Berne on the cusp of half-time after Shane Byrne's missed tackle gave Bath a 10-point cushion. "We got the result we deserved," said Saracens' director of rugby Alan Gaffney.

"We can't gift three tries as we did in that game. Our defence is the second or third best in the Premiership, but to do what we did in the first 40 minutes was abysmal." Although, culpable for an interception try from David Bory in the first half, Jackson was at the heart of the Saracens comeback.

The Kiwi fly-half delivered a delightful flip out of the tackle to put in Rodd Penney for his second try in the first half and slipped behind Bath's defence on the blindside to put in Scarbrough shortly after the break. Defeat here will have hurt Saracens, but the pain of losing will feel all the sharper if they fail to stave off Bristol and Wasps in the race for the Premiership play-offs.