Bath DoR plays down Watson and Underhill injury fears
Bath director of rugby Stuart Hooper believes his side have put their dismal European campaign behind them after an emphatic 38-10 victory over London Irish.
The west country side were out of sight by half-time at the Madejski Stadium, scoring five tries before the break courtesy of Beno Obano, Will Chudley, Anthony Watson, Semesa Rokoduguni and a penalty try.
Tom Homer’s second-half score was icing on the cake and the win lifts Bath to seventh in the Gallagher Premiership table, leapfrogging ninth-placed Irish.
The manner of the victory was the perfect tonic to a poor Champions Cup challenge, where Bath have lost all four of their games so far in Pool Four and are already eliminated with two rounds to go.
“There’s been lots of discussion externally and internally, but the lads have been absolutely spot on,” said Hooper.
“There’s a huge amount of belief among this group about what we’re doing and where we are going.
“We always knew there was going to be some serious challenges over the last month, and today was no different. It was great to see the lads go out then and deliver, and it’s all come off the back of some really hard work.
“The Champions Cup group was always going to be tricky for us, but we can now focus on the Premiership.
“We’ll turn around the learning from today before tomorrow morning, and the preparation for Sale will start as soon as the guys come in in the morning for their recovery.”
Hooper also played down injuries to England wing Watson and flanker Sam Underhill, both of whom left the field before full-time.
“He (Watson) got a slight niggle towards the end, but we’ve managed him carefully and he’s also looked after himself the right way,” he added.
What an incredible highlight reel this is on the Welsh youngster.
The cousin of
@taulupe@bvunipola
@mako_vunipolaA serious rugby prospect! #WelshRugbyhttps://t.co/weqmiIAPtv
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) December 22, 2019
“With regards to Sam, again we took him off because of a slight knock but he’s absolutely fine and he’ll be OK for next weekend.”
In contrast, London Irish director of rugby Declan Kidney warned his side they need to sharpen up or they could be quickly sucked into a relegation battle.
Irish have won two of their six Premiership matches since returning to the top flight but Kidney admits they were taught a harsh lesson after starting slowly.
“If you don’t start right in games like this – we knew they’d be raring to go with the tough start they’d had – you make it very difficult on yourselves,” said Kidney, whose team scored a consolation try through Adam Coleman.
“The first half just wasn’t us, and they won pretty much every collision. It’s easy to write this off as ‘one of those days’ but there’s things that happened today that were in our control and if we don’t fix them, ‘this kind of day’ will happen again.
“We have ground to make up now, but because of the way the season has been truncated so far, it only feels like the league is beginning now.”
Press Association
Comments on RugbyPass
🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
26 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
26 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
26 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
26 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
26 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to comments