MIKE Ford billed Bath's 21-11 victory over Saracens as "a great performance" after they moved top of the Aviva Premiership.

Tries in each half by centres Jonathan Joseph and Kyle Eastmond underpinned a first Bath victory over Saracens since February 2010 and ended their opponents' 100 per cent start to the league season.

Bath fly-half George Ford kicked three penalties and a conversion - he also missed five shots at goal - while the visitors could only muster a Chris Wyles try, plus a penalty apiece from Charlie Hodgson and Alex Goode.

"It was a great performance," Bath head coach Ford said.

"Defensively, we were up and at them, knocking them back and giving them no time to create anything.

"Last weekend (against Northampton) I was over-protective.

"I concentrated on not to lose instead of winning. We wanted to go out tonight and play our way, and when you've got a pack that can give you that sort of ball, you would be stupid not to play like that.

"We could have lost, but I was determined to play the way we wanted to. We are still only scratching the surface. It is going to be really exciting where we are going with this team."

It was another major statement of Premiership title intent by Bath, coming just a fortnight after they thumped Leicester 45-0, and the win was once again based around exuberant attacking talent that prospered from a dominant scrum anchored by props Paul James and David Wilson.

Had it not been for some resilient last-ditch Saracens tackling, then they could have been on the wrong end of a resounding defeat, with Joseph, Eastmond and wing Semesa Rokoduguni providing an invigorating attacking presence.

"'Roko' has been the stand-out winger all year," Ford added. "In terms of defenders beaten last season and defenders beaten this season thus far, he's second to none.

"He is learning the game as well. You saw a couple of good kicks there from him, too, when the time was right, although I don't want him to kick too much.

"He is hard to stop and he has been phenomenal for us.

"We know we can get better. Last season was great for us in terms of confidence and being on the right track, and now we have added more detail.

"When we scored our second try and ran it from our own 22, that's players making good decisions, it is not coaches saying 'kick this or run this'.

"I am committed to it. It is important we try to play the Bath way. We can play a number of ways because we have got the pack to do it."

Bath scored 10 points while Saracens' England wing Chris Ashton was in the sin-bin following what appeared to be a deliberate knock-on, although referee Greg Garner's yellow card did not meet with Saracens rugby director Mark McCall's approval.

"I thought it was a poor decision," McCall said.

"He (Ashton) clearly went for the intercept and the ball hit him twice on the arm. It didn't look like a deliberate knock-on to me. It was a big call to get wrong.

"We are disappointed with the result, obviously.

"Bath are a very good team. They are well-coached, they've got good players and give them a lot of credit, I thought they played very well.

"Once they got their noses in front they defended well and were hard to break down. We gave away a lot of set-piece penalties and clearly Chris Ashton's sin-binning was a significant moment in the match because we conceded 10 points in that time."