'He definitely did shock us on day one': new Bath star wows team-mates

With three tries in as many appearances, Henry Arundell hasn’t taken long to blow away defences on his return to the Premiership. But it took even less time for the England speedster to wow his Bath team-mates with his rapid turn of pace.

Tom de Glanville says seeing what Arundell could do in training alerted him to the scoring opportunities that might open up in matches. And the full-back didn’t have to wait long before he was the beneficiary of the winger’s ability to leave the opposition trailing in his wake, taking an inside pass from Arundell, who’d won the initial foot race, to score against Gloucester with just six minutes on the clock.

“He definitely did shock us on day one, I think,” said de Glanville, when asked about Arundell’s pace.

“Now it’s got to the point where I would say the rest of the backs pre-empt his speed and try and be somewhere where he can, hopefully, chuck it back to us.”

While Johann van Graan has previously told RugbyPass he’s not one to talk about a player’s GPS data publicly, de Glanville reckons Arundell has one or two competitors in the gas department.

“It’s him or Ted, Josh Bayliss isn’t too far off as well.”

Having Arundell’s pace as part of their attacking arsenal has given Bath another point of difference, something that van Graan takes great pride in when adding new players into the mix.

Referencing the back-three, he said: “I am not looking to retain or recruit the same type of player. You’ve got Joe (Cokanasiga), who is one of the biggest and strongest wingers in the world. I’d say you’ve got ‘Horse’ (Will Muir), who is one of the best aerial contesters in world rugby. I genuinely mean that. Look at his performance in the Premiership final and what he did for England in the summer. And then you have someone like Henry, who is incredibly fast, and you’ve got Deeg (De Glanville), who can play multiple positions.

“One of my key jobs is to make sure we have different points of difference across the squad. And with adding Henry, I think we have done that.”