Edgy: A Tribute

Rugby, like most sports, has become a game ruled by numbers and statistics. It may well be true that the numbers never lie but they also never tell the story behind the man. This is undoubtedly true as we consider the immense legacy that Dave Egerton left behind at Bath when he passed away at the ludicrously early age of 59. As Chris Hewett recalled he was “articulate, inquisitive, challenging, incisive, funny, determined, uplifting. Taken together they paint a picture of a life well spent, even though that life should have had many years left to run.”

In an era of Bath greats when winning trophies was de rigueur; he made 163 club appearances, averaged around a try every three games and won five league titles and cups apiece between 1985 and 1995.

His seven England appearances may seem few in today’s carousel of fixture congestion, but this would have been many more had he not missed two World Cups due to injury and had to battle forever past the behemoth of Dean Richards. Whilst his one Lions appearance was against France to celebrate the bicentennial of the French revolution it is a fitting finale to an impressive record.

It bears remembering that simply to have made it into the Bath Number 8 berth at that time was a sign of a superior athlete. This was a period during which Bath had Egerton, Paul Simpson, Steve Ojomoh and Ben Clarke to choose from as the spearhead to an unparalleled attack.  

We will all have our personal favourite players or combinations, usually shaped by those treasured memories garnered as we have grown up with our club, but for me the Bath back-rows of the eighties define the perfect mixture of power, pace and élan. The combination of Simpson, Hall and Egerton laid the foundation for an unparalleled period of glory in the history of Bath Rugby.

So enough of the colourless numbers, Dave Egerton had a very modern skill set. Fast, skilful and with dextrous hands he was forever linking attacks and creating momentum for others. Not as powerful as modern day goliaths but teak tough and like all one-club men fiercely committed to the cause.

He might not have been the wrecking ball of Steve Ojomoh, the dynamo of Dan Lyle nor the tactician of Ben Clarke but he combined a bit of each in magnificent style. Add to this, an unrelenting appetite for work and you had the beating heart of a true Bath legend.

There was a time watching Bath when he always seemed to be emerging last from the bottom of a ruck where he had either spoiled an opposition attack or sparked one for Bath.

Like almost all fans, I never knew the man, but it is worth playing back the words of some who did shortly after he passed from us:

Stuart Barnes: “He was smart in a team that prided itself on being rugby clever; he was very tough and he was the glue.”

Jon Hall: “Dave is a Bath legend; he made the club great during the 80s and 90s …. He was a great player and a lovely, lovely bloke.”

As OBinFiji recounts from his foolhardy attempt to oust him from the Loughborough University team then “Dave was too good, too fast, too strong, too - well everything. “