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The dressing room message that got Bath over the line against Irish in Europe 12 days after losing to them in the Premiership

(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Bath demonstrated an ability to quickly learn from adversity last weekend, comfortably defeating London Irish 26-13 in the Challenge Cup quarter-finals twelve days after they were beaten 33-36 by the Exiles in the Gallagher Premiership. Boss Stuart Hooper made five changes to the Bath starting XV for the rematch.

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Two of the switches were forced by the suspensions to Tom Dunn and Will Muir following indiscipline at Brentford, but that didn’t stop Hooper from delivering a forceful message to the chosen players in the build-up to the quarter-final and it seemingly played a part in getting a better result the second time around against the Exiles. 

What motivated Hooper was that there were a number of players in the Bath squad who have had no rugby this past year due to the pandemic cancellation of ancillary tournaments such as the Premiership Cup and the Shield, a tightening that has heaped pressure on first-team selection and limited opportunity. 

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With this inactivity in mind, he called on the players picked to play Irish to remind themselves how fortunate a position they were in to be chosen and to go out and win on behalf of those players whose year has been restricted to training at a time when the club are making huge financial losses.

“Without the Prem Rugby Cup and the Shield some of these guys have not played rugby for twelve months,” explained Hooper at his weekly media briefing ahead of a weekend where a friendly was sanctioned for this Friday against Gloucester to finally get some of his fringe players back on the field prior to Sunday’s Premiership clash with Leicester.

“Before we played London Irish in the quarter-finals, I said to them how very aware I was that I have now stood in front of you as a group of players for over a year and named teams every week and some of you have not been in any of them. I said to the (picked) players and the staff, ‘Please put yourself in the shoes of the players who haven’t been named in a team for a whole year, just think about that for a second’. 

“That is why we are going to put the effort into putting these fixtures (against Gloucester) on, giving these guys the opportunity – not to placate them but to give them the opportunity to fight for a jersey in the first team. We talk about the season tailing off: we have played 17 games but there is still a potential ten games to go. There is still a fair way to go and we want to make sure we remain competitive through that period of time.”

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JW 19 minutes ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Where? I remember saying "unders"? The LNR was formed by the FFR, if I said that in a way that meant the 'pro' side of the game didn't have an equal representation/say as the 'amateur' side (FFR remit) that was not my intent.


But also, as it is the governing body, it also has more responsibility. As long as WR looks at FFR as the running body for rugby in France, that 'power' will remain. If the LNR refuses to govern their clubs use of players to enable a request by FFR (from WR) to ensure it's players are able to compete in International rugby takes place they will simply remove their participation. If the players complain to the France's body, either of their health and safety concerns (through playing too many 'minutes' etc) or that they are not allowed to be part in matches of national interest, my understanding is action can be taken against the LNR like it could be any other body/business. I see where you're coming from now re EPCR and the shake up they gave it, yes, that wasn't meant to be a separate statement to say that FFR can threaten them with EPCR expulsion by itself, simply that it would be a strong repercussion for those teams to be removed (no one would want them after the above).


You keep bringing up these other things I cannot understand why. Again, do you think if the LNR were not acting responsibly they would be able to get away with whatever they want (the attitude of these posters saying "they pay the players")? You may deem what theyre doing currently as being irresponsible but most do not. Countries like New Zealand have not even complained about it because they've never had it different, never got things like windfall TV contracts from France, so they can't complain because theyre not missing out on anything. Sure, if the French kept doing things like withholding million dollar game payments, or causing millions of dollars of devaluation in rights, they these things I'm outlining would be taking place. That's not the case currently however, no one here really cares what the French do. It's upto them to sort themselves out if they're not happy. Now, that said, if they did make it obvious to World Rugby that they were never going to send the French side away (like they possibly did stating their intent to exclude 20 targeted players) in July, well then they would simply be given XV fixtures against tier 2 sides during that window and the FFR would need to do things like the 50/50 revenue split to get big teams visiting in Nov.

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