Bath starlet handed seasonal debut in heavily rotated team

Ciaran Donoghue will make his first appearance of the season for Bath when the reigning PREM champions take on the team they dethroned, Northampton, at Franklin’s Gardens this Saturday.

Donoghue enjoyed a breakthrough campaign as Bath won a historic treble in 2024/25 and was expected to cover for Finn Russell in the post-Lions rest period until suffering a bad knee injury against Munster in pre-season.

However, the 23-year-old returned to training earlier this month and Bath, who say he is quicker than ever before, have thrown the former Millfield straight in at No.10, alongside Bernard van der Linde.

Van der Linde has earned a ‘super-sub’ reputation with his tries from the bench, but the summer signing from the Bulls gets a rare chance to shine from the start in a heavily rotated squad.

Will Butt and Chris Harris pair up in a straight-up-and-down midfield, Will Muir and Louis Hennessey line up on the wings and Tom de Glanville is restored at full-back.

Fixture

Gallagher Premiership

Northampton

09:30

25 Apr 26

Bath

All Stats and Data

Bath will be led by openside Miles Reid, as often seems to be the way when a weakened team hits the road, and he will have blindside Josh Bayliss and No.8 Arthur Green for company in the back row.

Ewan Richards and Ross Molony will be stoking the fires in the Bath engine room, while Bath field a front row of Scott Kirk, who retains the starting loosehead jersey, hooker Dan Frost and tight-head Kieran Verden.

England age-grade winger Sam Winters will make his Gallagher PREM debut if called from the bench.

Bath Rugby: 1 Scott Kirk, 2 Dan Frost, 3 Kieran Verden, 4 Ewan Richards, 5 Ross Molony, 6 Josh Bayliss, 7 Miles Reid (c), 8 Arthur Green, 9 Bernard van der Linde, 10 Ciaran Donoghue, 11 Will Muir, 12 Will Butt, 13 Chris Harris, 14 Louie Hennessey, 15 Tom de Glanville.

Replacements: 16 Kepu Tuipulotu, 17 Francois van Wyk, 18 Archie Griffin, 19 Enoch Opoku-Gyamfu, 20 Ted Hill, 21 Tom Carr-Smith, 22 Sam Winters, 23 Sam Underhill.