Season Review 2023/24

I offered to do this end of season report for our lovely moderators a few weeks ago.  However, without the deadline of the weekend match, I didn’t get round to it as stupidly I have allowed work to get in the way! 

I have now been somewhat beaten to it by the excellent and moving Club interview with Johann van Graan, which is well worth a look if you have not already seen it,

JvG interview

In the body of this report, I will quote some of the choice elements.

In addition, there have been some cut and paste TV programmes which have reviewed the whole season.  Without doubt the summary of these reviews was that Bath are a coming force……which was good to hear.

Anyway, I am really pleased that JVG was very, very proud of the team, the squad and the staff, as he should have been. They agreed in the week up to the final that there could not be any regrets and that everything should be left out on the pitch, and they could not die wondering what might have been.  As he said we started so well and but for a game being played with a funny shaped ball and the bounce not going our way we could have scored in the first minute.  It’s funny because a result of what followed in the 21st minute, I had forgotten this!

His strong points were that Bath were in the Top 4 all season……something that had rather passed me by and that we picked up points in 17 out of 18 matches, which again I suppose I sort of knew.  I recall in past seasons that this was always a feature of Exeter’s campaigns and recognising that no team has won all of its matches in the professional era and that the accumulation of bonus points was very important.  Bath won one less game than Saints but picked up four more bonus points to be on the same points.  Sale won one more game than Bath but ended up four points behind Bath.

He further highlighted the Premiership Cup, a tournament which Bath have in the last few years been rubbish in.  JVG was not quite so blunt!  One weekend we had 46 players representing the Blue Black and White, a team of youngsters up in Scotland on the Friday evening and then another squad at Bath plying Exeter on the Saturday.  He considered this a very important development for the depth of the Club’s resources.

Other individual highlights were beating Saracens away, despite going behind.  As with Gloucester and Bristol where the same happened.  My abiding memory of the Gloucester game was seeing on TV Gloucester supporters asking for, and of course getting “selfies” with Finn Russell……a man who can brush away 150 years of “deadly” competition!

After the fabulous home Christmas game against Quins where Santa delivered an early Christmas present to the faithful with a 25 – 17 win which meant Bath were top for Christmas we were slowly becoming believers that Bath could be in the Top 4 by the end of the season.

Several times he mentioned the noise at the Rec and in particular highlighted the regular season match against Sale and then of course the semi-final against the same opposition.  When Nial Annett went over on 73 minutes to make it an “8 point game”.  The roar from the crowd was primaeval and was as if 10 years of frustration, underperformance and disappointment were washed away in one go.

For the future JVG highlighted the number of our younger players achieving representative honours in their national U20 squads.  He talked about each player’s “personal improvement plan” and how they would be sitting down to develop these from 15th July when the squad returns for preseason training.  

He talked about how on the 15th July every team is back to zero and everyone has to think about how to play the game, how to play their game and how to recognise and work with the new law changes.  Some real forward thinking and planning which is of course pleasing to see.

He mentioned twice “the best is yet to come” which normally might be a hostage to fortune but, in this case, feels like a challenge.  To be fair Ben Kay on the seasons highlights programme also said that Bath was in great shape and will only get better and stronger.

For my part, having been a season ticket holder for 22 yearsthe joy of the season was really looking forward to going to the Rec for the next home match in the anticipation of seeing some wonderful players, give their all, playing adventurous, exciting and by the by winning rugby.

I can’t wait for the new season to start!

THE BEST IS YET TO COME!