A GRIM DESCENT

  LLWLWLWWLL. Ten games from the Bordeaux semi-final in May. Four victories in that time. Seven defeats. It’s not the form of contenders for trophies - it’s not even the form of playoff hopefuls. In recent years a trip up the M5 has provided some measure of relief from tougher challenges on the fixture calendar but Gloucester this season are a team on the up and will head into Friday night as favourites. How much can Bath put right in under a week?

The answer in reality is probably not as much as fans would hope for. Mike Prendergast is still new to the attack coach role and embedding his ideas and patterns is going to be a gradual process not a sudden one. The line out hasn’t been fully trustworthy for a while so the chances of something revelatory happening there in the space of a few days seems slim. Less tangibly, if confidence or morale is low only results and performance will truly resolve that however positive a week the squad have on the paddocks at Farleigh. 

On the other hand, getting back to Johann van Graan’s second favourite mantra of being ‘tough to beat’ must be a non-negotiable. Too often over the last ten games Bath have ultimately lost the game with a lack of performance in the last 20-30 minutes which is tough to reconcile with a team who spent a good couple of years deploying its own Bomb Squad to such great effect. The loss of Thomas du Toit is part of that but can’t be the whole story. Where once our dominance at the end of games meant keeping it close for 50 odd minutes would be enough for a win against almost anyone, suddenly it feels like the reverse is true and teams are realising that Bath don’t have a full 80 minutes in them anymore. Even if the result this week goes with the formbook, van Graan and company must still show that we can be tougher to beat than we have been all too often in recent months. Making life hard for our hosts at the breakdown would be a good start. 

Speaking of the man in charge, van Graan probably finds himself under more pressure right now than at any other time since joining the club. Credit in the bank means his job isn’t at stake (and nor should it be) but the boss does need to answer a question that hasn’t been asked of him so far in his four years at Bath: can he turn around a team on the slide? He has proven he can rebuild what he labelled ‘a broken club’. He has proven he can maintain strong performances week on week and deliver trophies. This feels like a different type of challenge and one that may need a different type of solution. 

Which brings us to selection. We’ve heard often that players know when they will be required and teamsheets for blocks of fixtures are mostly planned out in advance with everyone having clarity on their role. That concept is easy to get on board with in good times when it feels like no matter which combination is sent into action you can be confident of a positive result with the added bonus of keeping players fresh for the business end of the season. What looks like rotating a strong squad for a winning team can easily look like chopping and changing for a losing one. Rewarding good performances and, perhaps more importantly, signalling that next week’s selection is not promised where players are not delivering feels like a more useful approach for the current situation. Several big members of the squad are also off contract in the summer and presumably are playing for their next deal, whether that comes at Bath or elsewhere which should serve as motivation if any were needed. 

To come around to something of a positive, Arthur Green has been outstanding this season and with injuries to Miles Reid and Dan du Preez it would be a shock not to see him continue at 8 on Friday. He’s looking like not just Bath’s future in that shirt but potentially England’s as well and someone the club should be looking to empower and build around. Ewan Richards, Will Jeanes, Charlie Griffin and Josh Bayliss can also be given minimal blame for poor results and maybe their comparative youth and athleticism is part of the reason for that as the Prem becomes increasingly end to end and less a showcase for big lads running into each other. 

Gloucester probably haven’t quite proven that they’re title contenders yet but there’s every reason to think they will be in the playoff mix based on evidence presented so far. They are also an example of how quickly things can change in this league. Whatever it is that Chris Boyd does with teams appears to work and they’ve added both class and steel to the spine of the team by bringing in Dewi Lake, Jean Kleyn and Jac Morgan over the summer. Perhaps more impressively they have got players like Charlie Atkinson, Will Trenholm and Will Joseph performing at a level that many suspected they were capable of but perhaps took a couple of years longer to reach than anticipated. They proved against the European champions that they can offer a tough test for anyone at the moment and there is no doubt Bath will have to raise their game to come away from Kingsholm with anything to show for their endeavours. 

In JvG we still trust. Time to show some signs of life.