PRE-SEASON ROUND 3: A GLASGOW KISS?

Bhatti: v old mates?

Many years ago my then boss was, amongst other things, a grizzled veteran of many seasons of rugby played at a reasonably high level. I mentioned a game that he was due to play on Sunday of that weekend and naively suggested that it should be a fairly easy recreational run out. Quick as a flash he snarled that "there's no such thing as expletive deleted "Sunday rugby"! His meaning was clear; every game requires the same positive mindset and to a certain extent the term "friendly" as applied to pre-season games is a similar misnomer. It'll be played in great spirit, but "friendly" is not necessarily the first term that comes to mind as we go head-to-head (hopefully not literally despite my opening title) against Glasgow Warriors this Friday at Old Anniesland.

I'm never quite sure whether pre-season games are designed to ask questions of the coaches and the squad as the new season approaches or to answer them. To be fair it's probably a bit of both, but as supporters we tend to look at these games for indications of how well we've prepared during the summer, to spot clues as to how the game strategy may have evolved and speculate on what we can expect to see from the team in the new season. Probably at the forefront of a lot of supporters' minds will have been concerns about how JvG and his coaching team will adapt to the departure of the likes of Thomas du Toit, Francois van Wyk and Alfie Barbeary which, on the face of it, removed a considerable amount of try scoring firepower from a team which seemed at times to rely on forward dominance rather than exploiting an incredibly talented backline.

Glasgow will be formidable opponents on Friday; arguably just what we need before the game against Harlequins who will be coming off the back of two PRC matches, so how do we look? At times, especially towards the end of last season, there was an uneasy feeling that other teams had worked us out and that we needed to make a change to the gameplan which had become our DNA over recent seasons and a lot of fingers were crossed that the addition of Mike Prendergast might be a catalyst for that. But, going into the toughest of our pre-season games have we seen the signs? I think we have. A loss is a loss, but JvG would probably argue that we learned a great deal from the defeat at Perpignan where a pack which didn't contain many of those that we would expect to see in the Prem went solidly toe to toe with a Top 14 side who were further into their pre-season than we were.  The performance of the "young guns" against a much more experienced Sale was equally creditable in its own way and reinforced our strength in depth. And that brings me to the Bedford game.

For the first 30-odd minutes it wasn't a pleasant watch for the BB&W supporters. The gameplan looked jaded, the execution was poor and defence at times optional. And then somehow a switch was flicked. between minutes 46 and 66 we saw the Bath that we hope will be the hallmark of our strategy for 26/27. Lightning-fast transition, speedy, accurate passing and relentless all-court attack backed up by resilient, dominant defence. That's more like it but, and it's a big but, we've yet to see a consistent performance over 80 minutes.

Perhaps Glasgow will be where it all comes together. The Warriors have so far played only one pre-season game, fielding a blend of senior professionals with young talent from their academy graduates against a much-changed Newcastle Red Bulls team who ran out 47-31 winners. Amongst the new signings for Glasgow was hooker Ottavio Tuipolotu, which raises an intriguing possibility if Kepu is selected at 2 for Bath in this game! Both teams have testing competitive fixtures on the following weekend, so you would imagine that at some point during the game we will see something like their first choice 23 playing together.

For Bath, we know that Ben Spencer won't be available for a while yet, so it will be interesting to see whether Tom Carr-Smith or the increasingly impressive Bernard van der Linde get the starting nod at 9. It was a relief to see Will Stuart back in action last Friday and most of our key players seem to be available although we haven’t yet seen the likes of Charlie Ewels, Will Muir, Finn, Jaco Coetzee, Guy Pepper and of course Jamie Bhattie who, you would think, would love to get a run out against Glasgow.

There were hints of something special in the way that Bath played during the "purple patch" against Bedford. I'd like to think that we'll see more of the same against Glasgow with less reliance on the kick-chase game and forwards although we've already seen that the rolling maul is alive and well and available in the back pocket if we need it!

You get the impression that JvG selected these pre-season games with a view to building up the intensity before the start of the Prem. If we kiss Glasgow goodbye with a convincing performance, then the signs will be good.

COYB