Bath's treble win blends yesteryear charm with the recently unthinkable | Michael Aylwin

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First league crown ends a drought of almost three decades that the Rec Ground faithful would have scarcely believed at the dawn of the professional era

At the 29th time of asking, Bath are champions of England once more. At five to five on a sunny afternoon here, Ben Spencer passed to Finn Russell – the married couple, as their coach, Johann van Graan, likes to call them – and Russell kicked it somewhere, anywhere but on the pitch to put an end to decades of pain out west.

In 1996, when titles were won the old-fashioned way, the notion it would take so long for Bath, who had just won their sixth in eight years – their 10th cup in 13, and their fourth double – to become champions of England again would have seemed absurd. Only a little more absurd than the notion they wouldwin it would have seemed three years ago, when they finished bottom of the table, spared the indignity of relegation only by the very different way English rugby is organised these days.