Ross Chisholm admitted Harlequins’ slow start was their undoing at The Rec as Bath put John Kingston’s men to the sword.

In a clinical first-half display, Bath crossed the whitewash four times, including a devastating 19-point spell while James Chisholm was in the sin bin on their way to a 38-14 Premiership win.

A silver lining came for Quins when Henry Cheeseman and Gabriel Ibitoye dotted down for their first tries for the club.

But fullback Chisholm, older brother of flanker James, admitted the early setbacks were always going to be too difficult to recover from.

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“Everyone’s bitterly disappointed with how we performed in the first 20 minutes,” said 27-year-old Chisholm. “You’re never going to win a game if you ship four tries in the first half.

“That yellow card period we let in 19 points and we’ve got to be smarter in those moments to try and kill the time off.

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“Ultimately that is what cost us the game – we had some good patches, but you can’t give teams four tries to start.

“We’ll brush ourselves off and try to come back next week – we’ve got a massive challenge at the weekend against Saracens.

“It’s important we come back from this and look to put our best foot forward.

“It’s always a big game against Sarries – they’re right at the top of their game and there’s a reason why they’ve won so many trophies in the past.”  

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