Lot of history with this club and more recently for them, most of it has been horrible. Bath Rugby are the classic professional era ‘flatterer to deceive’, akin to a smart youngs financial advisor with shiny shoes and an expensive suit who sells high but delivers low and then stops answering your calls. Undoubted thoroughbreds of the amateur era they have regressed to being mid-table workhorses in professional times, averaging only fifth in the 22 years of the Premiership albeit punctuated with a short bursts of orgasmic glory with a couple of European cups and a League title in the early 2000s. But this is 2021 and they have won nothing for thirteen years. A poor return from a club that bagged six titles and ten domestic cups before English rugby took its deep dive into professionalism. I suppose you could say that one of their greatest achievements has been not getting relegated.
So, despite a loyal fanbase, a series of top coaches and a regular smattering of international players what is the problem with Bath? Undoubtedly the answer is complex but the perennial ‘redevelopment of the Rec’ issue has got to be top of the agenda and although the Bruce Craig takeover delivered a much improved training facility and playing budget, the fact that they remain impotent when it comes to developing a stadium to be proud of is a physical and psychological scar that they seem incapable of shaking off.
And to that extent I have some sympathy. For a city that has benefitted hugely from the club over the years, with match day fans and their families fans flocking into the centre to buy their pre match champagne and caviar, it appears to be in no rush to reward Bath Rugby for the positive economic and social impact that is has had conveniently forgetting that if the ‘city’ of Bath didn’t have rugby, what else would it really have at the moment? Only being famous as an exercise park for geriatric foreign tourists, having a twee Christmas market and building an overpriced sauna in the centre of town on the back of its Roman heritage doesn’t really cut the metropolitan mustard of the 21st century. And with COVID putting pay to all that, rugby is about the only thing happening in the place. But, there are certain residents in Bath, particularly those residing in houses overlooking the Rec, who are so myopic in their view about the benefits that sports other than quoits, croquet and grouse shooting can bring to a locale, that they have taken NIMBY-ISM to an Olympic level by blocking plans for Rec development at every turn. And when you think that the city is surrounded by Jacob Rees-Mogg’s North East Somerset constituency, Bath Rugby fans must sometimes feel that they are subject to some sort of political siege led by insane medieval barons. Despite Bristol’s patchy record in getting things done, Bath fans must look at what’s happened in BS3 over the last few years and weep.
And to cap it all their preparation for their big local derby has been disrupted by a COVID testing cock up of monumental proportions. I’m sure many rugby fans were interested to learn from this whole sorry debacle that a weirdly named company called Randox has been administering the testing for Premier Rugby but of course no doubt heartened to read that ‘as a result of routine risk analysis, Randox discovered that in an isolated incident operators failed to follow the established and robust procedures we have in place for Covid-19 testing,” said a spokesperson for the company. “We apologise for any inconvenience caused and have introduced innovative robotic systems to ensure this type of human error cannot reoccur.” Really. Well thank the Lord on high. You’ve said sorry and brought the terminators in. Why should we worry anymore. The only thing that would make this story more unpalatable, if that is at all possible, is to discover that the CEO of ‘Randox’ is in fact Matt Hancock’s second cousin twice removed who used to run a bubble bath import and export business from his garage in Penge and that the tendering and due diligence process needed to get government approval to flog this service was a handwritten proposal scrawled on the back of a proverbial fag packet. I imagine that the only positive thing that came out of this whole sorry affair was that it made Bath fans momentarily forget that the last time they turned out in the Premiership they shipped 50 points to Wasps and that Bristol beat Exeter the next day with such an impressive display of disciplined, intense and clinical rugby that it made Bears fans squeak with joy. Nope, the omens aren’t good for the Baaarf but of course this is sport and that means that sometimes the impossible can become possible.
So bearing in mind the famous Rumsfeldian ‘ known knowns’, ‘known unknowns’ and those pesky ‘unknown unknowns’ that must always be taken into account when predicting the outcome of a sporting contest, what can we expect on Friday? Well first, Bears will be disappointed not to get another bonus point win given that they have only lost Ben Earl from the pack whereas Bath’s will be shorn of Beno Obano, Will Stuart and Sam UnderHill and given that Bath’s set piece attacking threat has been minimal this season and will be even more impotent with the absence of Watson and Redpath and their defence somewhat suspect, it is fairly safe to assume that trying to keep the ball away from our rampant running roster of Semi, Siva, Charles and the rest may result in a barrage of box kicks from Ben Spencer. But to do this effectively they will need to get on the front foot and squeeze our forwards. Which takes us back to the pack being shorn of their internationals. And, given the way that Exeter were schooled by us at Sandy park with an awesome display of controlled aggression they are going to have their work cut out. However, the glimmer of hope for Bath is the omission of Randall from the Bears’ line up with Uren filling the breach and Llloyd starting at 10. Will Andy be able to maintain that zip and intensity that Harry has given us in recent games and has the ridiculously talented but factually young and inexperienced Welsh Wonkderkind got the nous and cojones to manage a game from the start? It feels treacherous even to cast aspersions on him but pressure is a funny thing and if Bath manage to exert it on him in some way then who knows? I imagine Zach Mercer will be visualising rib shots in his sleep every night as the game approaches.
Either way, it is great to have some Premiership rugby to talk about and despite the odds being firmly in Bristol’s favour lets hope that we avoid a Foinavon and cement our position at the top of the tree come the weekend!
Filthy Rig 