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Three players that you need to watch in tonight's game between Bristol Bears and Bath

Bath will be hoping that their new signings will deliver tonight.

There are less than six hours until the Gallagher Premiership begins for the 2018/2019 season, and the clash between Bristol Bears and Bath appears to be extremely competitive to say the least.

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Bristol Bears, having being promoted from the Championship last year, will be looking to hit the ground running under the watchful eye of head coach Pat Lam. The club based in the south-west, have high hopes this year of a successful season with some key high profile signings. However it will be a tough start to the year, facing a team that has equally ambitious goals in the form of Bath.

Bath should at the very least be aiming to secure Champions Cup rugby, after finishing the 2017/2018 season at a disappointing sixth place. Like Bristol, the Somerset club have also made a string of strong signings and this should hold the club in good standing coming into a long and arduous season.

It would be difficult for anyone to predicts tonight’s match, but we will attempt to pinpoint some of the key players who can win the game for each team.

Continue reading below…

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We take a look at three players who we believe will make a decisive difference in the match for both teams.

Joe Cokanasiga (Wing)

This will be the first Premiership match for the 20-year-old since his move from newly-relegated London Irish. Cokanasiga scored for the men in blue during the final pre-season game against Scarlets last week after intercepting the ball from halfway and easily cruising through under the sticks.

Standing at 6ft 3 and weighing in at almost 18st, the Fijian-born winger has been likened by many to Matt Banahan. However, speed is what really draws Cokanasiga apart from his peers, with the ability to beat any defender in a footrace.

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We are sure that there will be a big impact from this player at some stage during the match and he is certainly one to keep an eye on.

Joe Cokanasiga in action for his previous club London Irish

 

George Smith (Openside Flanker)

At 38 years of age, Smith is undoubtedly one of the most experienced heads in World Rugby. Smith has become known around the rugby world for his unbelievable work ethic around the pitch, and that has not changed a bit despite his age. The former Australia international has played for Toulon, Wasps and the Reds along with many other clubs, however this new challenge appears to be different from the rest.

Bristol Bears are without a doubt, ‘the new boys’ on the block and Smith will have to face up to some of England’s most promising back-rows this season.

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We are sure that you will witness some Smith magic tonight so make sure to keep an eye out for him on the flank.

George Smith in action for the Brumbies

 

Sam Underhill (Openside Flanker)

English rugby has been blessed to have such a talented youngster at their disposal. The 22-year-old Bath player will be hoping recapture some of the form that he had from the start of last season, when he single-handedly bulldozed many of the teams that he came up against in the Premiership.

His defence is without a doubt his greatest asset and you can be sure to see some big hits from this man. His England debut came in Novemeber of last year, when he made a series of crunching hits on the Argentinian team that he came up against. Underhill would be well worth considering adding to your Premiership Fantasy team for the amounts of completed tackles that he gets through in a game. (Scroll down to the bottom to find the link.)

Underhill is still young and he faces a tough test in his opposite number, George Smith tonight. It will definitely a tale of youth vs experience and it will be interesting to see who comes out on top.

Sam Underhill singing the national anthem before the June series.

 

Tonight’s clash is a tantalising one to say the least, so make sure to catch the game LIVE on www.RugbyPass.com or if you can’t manage that then catch all the updates and statistics here – https://bit.ly/2PRLw4v

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H
Hellhound 3 hours ago
Brett Robinson looks forward to 'monumental' year in 2025

I'm not very hopeful of a better change to the sport. Putting an Aussie in charge after they failed for two decades is just disgusting. What else will be brought in to weaken the game? What new rule changes will be made? How will the game be grown?


Nothing of value in this letter. There is no definitive drive towards something better. Just more of the same as usual. The most successful WC team is getting snubbed again and again for WC's hosting rights. What will make other competitions any different?


My beloved rugby is already a global sport. Why is there no SH team chosen between the Boks, AB's, Wallabies and Fiji? Like a B&I Lions team to tour Europe and America? A team that could face not only countries but also the B&I Lions? Wouldn't that make for a great spectacle that will also bring lots of eyeballs to the sport?


Instead with an Aussie in charge, rugby will become more like rugby league. Rugby will most likely become less global if we look at what have become of rugby in Australia. He can't save rugby in Australia, how will he improve the global footprint of rugby world wide?


I hope to be proven wrong and that he will raise up the sport to new heights, but I am very much in doubt. It's like hiring a gardener to a CEO position in a global company expecting great results. It just won't happen. Call me negative or call me whatever you'd like, Robinson is the wrong man for the job.

3 Go to comments
J
JW 3 hours ago
The Fergus Burke test and rugby's free market

The question that pops into my mind with Fergus Burke, and a few other high profile players in his boots right now, and also many from the past to be fair, is can the club scene start to take over this sentimentality of test footy being the highest level? Take for a moment a current, modern day scenario of Toulouse having a hiccup and failing to make this years Top 14 Final, we could end up seeing the strongest French side in History touring New Zealand next year. Why? Because at any one time they could make up over half the French side, but although that is largely avoided, it is very likely at the national teams detriment with the understanding these players have of playing together likely being stronger than the sum of the best players throughout France selected on marginal calls.


Would the pinnacle of the game really not be reached in the very near future by playing for a team like Toulouse? Burke might have put himself in a position where holding down a starting spot for any nation, but he could be putting himself in the hotbed of a new scene. Clearly he is a player that cherishes International footy as the highest level, and is possibly underselling himself, but really he might just be underselling these other nations he thinks he could represent.

Burke’s decision to test the waters with either England or Scotland has been thrown head-first into the spotlight by the relative lack of competition for the New Zealand 10 shirt.

This is the most illogical statement I've ever read in one of your articles Nick. Burke is behind 3 All Stars of All Black rugby, it might be a indictment of New Zealand rugby but it is abosolutely apparent (he might have even said so himself) why he decided to test the waters.

He mattered because he is the kind of first five-eighth New Zealand finds it most difficult to produce from its domestic set-up: the strategic schemer, the man who sees all the angles and all the bigger potential pictures with the detail of a single play.

Was it not one of your own articles that highlighted the recent All Black nature to select a running, direct threat, first five over the last decade? There are plenty of current players of Burke's caliber and style that simply don't fit the in vogue mode of what Dan Carter was in peoples minds, the five eight that ran at the slightest hole and started out as a second five. The interesting thing I find with that statement though is that I think he is firmly keeping his options open for a return to NZ.

A Kiwi product no longer belongs to New Zealand, and that is the way it is. Great credo or greater con it may be, but the free market is here to stay.

A very shortsighted and simplistic way to end a great article. You simply aren't going to find these circumstances in the future. The migration to New Zealand ended in 1975, and as that generation phases out, so too will the majority of these ancestry ties (in a rugby context) will end. It would be more accurate to say that Fergus Burke thought of himself as the last to be able to ride this wave, so why not jump on it? It is dying, and not just in the interests or Scottish of English fans.

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