It's been a long time...

By Devonport Boy
September 20 2023

By my reckoning the last time Bath met London Scottish in a top level competition was in the 98/99 season in the old Allied Dunbar Premiership. They beat us by 13-11 in October 98 at the Stoop, but Bath delivered a resounding 76-13 win back at the Rec on 16 th May 99. I think we’d just about take that on Saturday!

Of course, a lot of water has flowed under Pulteney Bridge since then. The fortunes of the two famous old Clubs have differed greatly, with London Scottish having to rebuild themselves. But they’ve shown great determination and resilience over the years and with the future of London Irish still very uncertain and London Welsh plying their trade in the lower divisions, London Scottish are now the highest flying of the traditional old “exile” clubs. You can bet they’ll bring those qualities to the Rec on Saturday.

OK, before we look forward, let’s address the elephant in the room. Last Saturday wasn’t the result that we would have wanted from the first game of the season at the Rec. That said, and looking at it objectively, a predominantly young Bath team selected quite rightly in my view in the spirit of the Premiership Cup as a development competition was always going to find playing the team that won the Championship in 22/23 a huge challenge. We were beaten by a better team on the day. It’s sport. It happens. How we move forward from that is the issue for Saturday and beyond. Despite the result there were some encouraging individual performances and there is a lot there to build on.

Personally, I don’t think we will see wholesale changes for the London Scottish game, unless we picked up some injuries against Jersey.Don’t forget, this squad beat Cornish Pirates at the Mennaye two weeks ago and consistency of selection is needed if they are to grow as a team. I do think we might see one or two senior players who need some game time in advance of the Edinburgh friendly on 6th October, though. I know a number of supporters were disappointed with the heavy reliance on the boot in the game against Jersey and are concerned that it might indicate how the Premiership squad are going to play. I don’t think you can extrapolate too much from the Premiership cup games; as I understand it there are different training programmes in place with specific focus on each competition.

I look forward to seeing a confident squad of predominantly young players on Saturday who will build on the win against Pirates and who, with guidance from the coaches, will have addressed and fixed the problems that we saw against Jersey. It’ll be another testing day for the pack but they’ll rise to the challenge. We’ve got immense talent in our backs and it would be great to see the team play in a way that allows them to unleash it.

It might not be 73 – 13 but hopefully it’ll feel like 1999 again!

COYB

It's been a long time...

Posted by: Comeonmylovers.co.uk (IP Logged)

Date: 20/09/2023 12:53

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:09:26:10:23:20 by CoochieCoo.