By PerryGo
October 29 2002

With the cruel elements having robbed him of the opportunity to Look Back in Anger this week, PerryGo is forced to focus instead on next Saturday’s victims at the Stoop – Bath Rugby.

What’s In a Name?

Have you ever wondered why a club should choose to add the word ‘Rugby’ to their official name?  As opposed to what, one wonders? 

I suppose it all depends on where you start from - thousands of Bristol fans would be delighted to add ‘Rugby’ to their name, if it meant they could shed ‘Shoguns’.  Quite the most embarrassing corporate rugby sell-out since the official ‘Vodaphone Wallabies’ - sponsored streakers and all.   Quins, of course, is simply ‘Harlequin Football Club’ (albeit T/A ‘NEC Harlequins’).   

Given Bath’s record to date this season – not to mention quite a good deal of last season – one could be forgiven for thinking it was Andrew Brownsword’s idea, to remind the Bath players what they do for a living.  Many of us felt before the season (OK, I did…) that Bath were prime candidates for the drop and their performances to date have not dispelled the idea one bit.

Perhaps the malaise affecting Welsh rugby has spread across the border?  

Last weekend’s home defeat to Leeds should be no disgrace, given Leeds’ early-season form, but it was perhaps surprising to read these comments (on Yahoo Sport):

“Michael Foley, co-coach of Bath, has called on his side to reproduce the sort of form they showed in Saturday's home defeat by second-placed Leeds for the rest of the season”.

I guess Harlequins would be happy with that!

Obviously, all joking aside, he was talking about the quality of the play rather than the final result – and, in particular, the fact they managed three tries.  No mean achievement, when in their previous 6 Zurich Premiership matches they had managed only four tries in total, the worst record in the division.

Every Bath Has a Plughole… 

Bath’s problems appear to stem from a number of things.  Let’s take a look at some of them.

Firstly, the backline and in particular the role of the enigma known as Mike Catt.  

Catty has always earned mixed reviews, particularly during his early seasons with England, when things seemed to go well and badly for him in successive matches.  Personally, I’ve been a long-time fan of his, but I have to observe that Bath have become very dependent on him. 

Travelling Harlequins’ fans may recall last season’s match at the Rec, where but for his contributions Quins would surely have won the game. 

Catt is Bath’s main (only?) midfield playmaker, but where to play him – outside half or inside centre – is a conundrum.  England, with the not-inconsiderable benefit of Jonny Wilkinson available to play 10 - and with the ever-improving Charlie Hodgson waiting in the wings – have used him at inside centre to good effect, with Quins’ own Will ‘Shaggy’ Greenwood outside him.  But if Bath play Catt there, they must rely on young Olly Barkley at fly half.  They do have another fly half option in former Australian U-21 and Exeter Chiefs’ Chris Malone, although he has been accused of generating ‘static play’ and that simply adds to the selection headache in other positions.

A former Colston’s pupil, Barkley was looked upon as a teenage prodigy, but seems to have fallen from grace of late.  He gained a cap playing for England on their US tour in 2001 (performing at scrum half and inside centre as well as fly half) even before he’d made his Bath first-team debut.  Some skeptics later suggested, however, that this was merely a cynical ploy by Clive Woodward to take away Barkley’s eligibility for another home nation for which he also qualified, giving Woodward a longer-term option if Barkley made the grade in senior rugby.

Barkley played in 26 matches for his club last season, and scored 156 points.  He also featured in the England U-21 team.  This season, he has already contributed 107 points, including 65 out of Bath’s total of 118 in the ZP. 

So you’d think Bath would play Barkley at inside centre to Catt’s outside half (or even vice-versa), following the classic ‘second five-eighths’  approach (i.e. playing another ‘fly half-type’, preferably – as with Catt/Barkley – offering a right foot/left foot combo) prevalent in the Southern Hemisphere.  But no.  You see, Bath have two other international centres to accommodate, in Kevin Maggs and Mike Tindall. 

So, last week Barkley was on the wing.  Not a natural winger (he can’t be expected to play everywhere!) Bath need him in the side for his goal kicking, since neither Catt nor the just-returned from injury Matt Perry can match his strike rate.  This, incidentally, is around the 86% mark (to Burke’s 79% and Slemen’s 47%).

Maggs and Tindall are both good players, but they are very similar in style.  And, they don’t have the creativity of the Catts and Barkleys of the world. 

In any event, the consensus seems to be that Catt is vital to Bath’s backline firing on all cylinders, and Barkley is vital to their goal kicking.  So both can be expected to appear somewhere next Saturday.  Watch out for Quins looking to exploit Barkley’s lack of pace with Moore and Gollings.

Youth Opportunities

Another problem Bath have had is a loss of senior players.  A number of stalwarts from recent years were let go or retired.  At the same time, Bath elected to depend on a group of young players who were perhaps lauded before their time.  Unsubstantiated rumours – naming no-one in particular – suggest some of them became a bit too big for their boots, thinking they’d arrived when the journey had only just begun. 

Iain Balshaw is one young player widely and understandably acclaimed as The Next Big Thing after some scintillating performances, but he has struggled to regain form after a sorry time with the Lions.  Recently injured, Woodward has so far kept faith with him (he’s still in the Elite Players Squad), but one wonders for how long.  Critics would say that opponents have worked Balshaw out, especially when he is lacking the confidence to play to his best form.  Having never been a big fan of Balshaw, I personally doubt he will make it back to the international stage in any significant way.

Bath have also experienced upheaval in the coaching staff (not that Harlequins are in a position to throw stones in that particular glass house…) and John Callard - ‘JC’ – who had served Bath for many years as both player and coach departed, later to appear as an assistant to Phil Davies at Leeds.  How sweet last weekend’s victory at the Rec must have been for him and hooker Mark ‘Ronnie’ Regan, another former senior Bath player who also made the long journey Up North in the close season. 

Finally, Foley has been clear what he is looking for from the players – he wants to play a style of rugby he calls “attacking, expansive and very physical at the contact points”.  But does he have the personnel for it? 

Last week’s starting lineup for the Leeds game was as follows:

15. Matt Perry 14. Simon Danielli 13. Mike Tindall 12. Kevin Maggs 11. Olly Barkley 10. Mike Catt 9. Gareth Cooper 1. Simon Emms 2. Jonathan Humphreys
3. Alessio Galasso 4. Steve Borthwick 5. Danny Grewcock 6. Gavin Thomas 7. Dan Lyle 8. Nathan Thomas

The first two of Foley’s three expressed ambitions – “attacking and expansive” - are dependent upon the backs in general and the half backs in particular.  However, Tindall and Maggs are more likely to fit the mould of the third ambition – “very physical at the contact points” – which you would think was the domain of the pack.

My view has long been that you don’t win many matches unless you have a dominant pack, and notwithstanding an outstanding ball player in Dan Lyle (very much in the Diprose mould) and a player who specializes in what Foley calls the “contact points” in Danny ‘How-Long-Of-My-Ten-Minutes-Left?’ Grewcock, it is hard to see this group of Bath forwards asserting themselves to the degree necessary.

The Big Questions

Harlequins will have plenty of reasons to be confident this weekend, but the tie offers up some fascinating questions:

• Will Quins be able to lay the ghost of last week’s abysmal performance against Caerphilly to rest, or will old failings come back to haunt them?

• If the first quarter goes badly, will the fragile confidence be shattered?

• How will Greenwood get on out of position at fly half against his old England partner Mike Catt?

• Will the Quins’ pack get it together and dominate (as a good result demands they do)?

• Can the Quins’ backs nullify the pace of Perry and Danielli and the power of Maggs and Tindall, at the same time exploiting the speed of their own wingers?

• Will Barkley get enough chances to use his excellent kicking form and put Quins on the back foot?

• And how will Williams or Gollings perform as the likely Harlequins’ goal kickers?  Can they hold their end up enough to match Barkley?

Don’t miss it, folks!  I predict a Harlequins win, somewhere around 26-16, but we’ll need to outscore them on tries to do it.