Match Preview - Full Steam Ahead


By Ed Scott
February 2 2012

A trip to Sandy Park will conclude the pool stages of Bath's LV Cup campaign this Sunday, with Exeter the final challenge in our quest for a spot in the last four. We have only once won three games in a row this season and have no victories away from home in 2012. Confidence is improving, but we need continued success this weekend (and beyond) before winning becomes a habit again.

The victory against Northampton at The Rec, not only gave the fans something to smile about, but put Bath in an almost unassailable position at the top of pool one. With Saracens five points behind us the permutations are simple. A losing bonus point gives us the top spot. If we get nothing from the game and Saracens get a winning bonus point we will be on equal match points and then it comes down to tries scored. Bath have so far scored 19 tries against Saracens' 8 tries, meaning that Sarries would have to score 12 this weekend and Bath none in order for them to top the group ahead of us. In the other pools, Scarlets are currently top theirs on 14 points, Leicester with 9 points and Northampton 10 points. Leicester cannot overtake us, but Saints could (albeit with a huge number of tries needed). As such however, we are likely to already have a home semi final (as one of the teams with the most match points) as it is highly improbable that either Northampton or Saracens will score 12+ tries.
 
As predicted by a few on ERE, Bath were in a no win situation last weekend. If we won, it would come down to the 'weak' Saints team, and a loss would condemn us to a season of failure, loss of jobs, etc, etc.... Predictably, Dewi Morris harped on about this in the post game analysis on Sky. In fact, he went on about the negatives so much that Paul Wallace had to remind him that Bath had won the game and scored five tries! I wonder if Dewi has read the thread about him on the board?!
 
As such, in order to gain some perspective, I have watched the full recorded game on TV, and then the highlights! (OK, the latter was really just for fun!) The Saints captain Christian Day put it into perspective when he was interviewed. He felt it was clear that wasn't the young guys who let them down, but the older heads (including himself incidentally) in the last 20 minutes that needed to be looking at themselves. Bath seemed to respond to the challenge of bringing on the likes of Tonga'uiha and Mujati by upping the tempo and playing the expansive rugby that we have been so used to in recent years.
 
We clearly struggled in the set piece at times, but not all the scrums retreated (in fact we won two penalties from scrums, one which gave us 3 points). So much of the scrum is won in the initial hit and when Bath won it they were on top. Sadly they didn't get their timing quite right, but it is not a disaster. The lineout is more of an issue, mainly due to injuries. It was good to see Hooper back, but his injury looks likely to keep him out for a few weeks at least and with Will Spencer also picking up a knock, we may be looking for emergency cover again.
 
The team selection is buoyed by the fact that Mears, Wilson, Banahan and Attwood have all been deemed surplus to requirements by England. Harsh in particular on Attwood in my opinion, but he is desperately needed. Both Perenise and Bell played well on Saturday and I would be tempted to allow them to continue. If possible I would start with Mears though. Batty is improving but his lineout work is not quite there yet and Mears was superb when he came on.
 
In the backs I understand that Claassens is in South Africa so Chris Cook will get another run at scrum half with Fury poised to make a 1st team debut from the bench. Abendanon is playing for the Saxons instead of the disgraced Delon Armitage, so I assume that Vesty will wear 15 as Cuthbert is likely to be with Scotland. As Banahan is back he is likely to take the 13 shirt. Nick Scott and Danny Hipkiss (who I'm assured actually is fit this week) will bench in the backs with Barkley providing the cover for fly half in Heathcote's absence.
 
Sunday is a big opportunity for Bath. We can't expect to walk over and score four tries against what will be a very abrasive and robust Exeter, but we should be striving hard for the win. The problems we have in the set piece will be tested considerably and we will need to bring real speed and intensity to dominate the breakdown again. We know that a loss won't ruin our chances in this competition, but a victory would mean so much. I have lost count of the number of times I've said the word 'momentum' this season, but heading into the Newcastle game with another win could help catapult Bath up the Premiership table as well. Don't lift off Bath, we might just be going somewhere.

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Match Preview - Full Steam Ahead
Discussion started by BathRugbyEre.co.uk , 02/02/2012 19:24
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02/02/2012 19:24
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:02:09:18:16:57 by Glen The Ed.

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johnnyf
03/02/2012 09:06
Well written Ed - precise and to the point.
In actual fact I hadn't realised that we would be missing so many players for the reasons you describe.

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