Bath vs LIrish

[Which Tyler]

Bath Rugby:
15 Matt Gallagher, 14 Joe Cokanasiga, 13 Jonathan Joseph, 12 Cameron Redpath, 11 Ruaridh McConnochie, 10 Piers Francis, 9 Ben Spencer
1 Beno Obano, 2 Tom Dunn, 3 D’Arcy Rae, 4 Dave Attwood, 5 Josh McNally, 6 Miles Reid, 7 Sam Underhill, 8 Josh Bayliss

16 Niall Annett, 17 Valeriy Morozov, 18 Will Stuart, 19 Quinn Roux, 20 Fergus Lee-Warner, 21 Louis Schreuder, 22 Orlando Bailey, 23 Chris Cloete


London Irish:
15 James Stokes, 14 Lucio Cinti, 13 Benhard van Rensburg, 12 Rory Jennings, 11 Ben Loader, 10 Paddy Jackson, 9 Joe Powell
1 Facundo Gigena, 2 Agustin Creevy, 3 Oliver Hoskins, 4 Api Ratuniyarawa, 5 Rob Simmons, 6 Juan Martin Gonzalez, 7 Tom Pearson, 8 Matt Rogerson (c)

16 Mike Willemse, 17 Tarek Haffar, 18 Lovejoy Chawatama, 19 Josh Caulfield, 20 Chandler Cunningham-South, 21 Ben White, 22 Luca Morisi, 23 Will Joseph

[16th man]

Pearson vs Underhill a genuine head to head or a clash of styles?

[Puja]

Pearson vs Underhill a genuine head to head or a clash of styles?

More likely a clash of heads, with Underhill going off for an HIA.

Puja

[Epaminondas Pules]

Good to see Joseph back

[Banquo]

Good to see Joseph back

Suspect only cos Lawrence is away- he has been on the bench recently.


....but you mean Will . Did he get a cap in Oz? seems like ages ago now.

[Puja]

Good to see Joseph back

Suspect only cos Lawrence is away- he has been on the bench recently.


....but you mean Will . Did he get a cap in Oz? seems like ages ago now.

He did indeed get capped - a few minutes at the end of the second test, before getting splinters for 80 minutes in the third.

Puja

[Mikey Brown]

Ah… memories.

[FKAS]

Will Stuart on the Bath bench is really good to see. That injury in the AIs was pretty nasty. Thought it might have been season over.

[Margin_Walker]

Strong looking Bath team tbf

It is good to see W Joseph back fit for LI. Jennings has done okay, but I think we generally look better with van Rensburg at 12 and a strike runner like Joseph (or Rona previously) outside him.

Nice to see Haffar in the squad. 21 and a real modern loosehead with a big carrying game. His development has been hampered by injuries so far, but the coaches do seem to rate him. Bit of a baptism of fire in the set piece though up against Obano/Stuart.

[Margin_Walker]

Tight game. 10 - 12 at HT. Kidney being uncharacteristically brutal and hooking Powell after half an hour, who was getting repeatedly caught at the base by Spencer. White makes an immediate impression and scores to edge LI in front just before HT.

[Which Tyler]

Much less tight now.
Bath seemingly incapable of winning a lineout, and currently down to 13 me for... sheer stupidity.

10 - 22
60 min

[Mikey Brown]

Tight game. 10 - 12 at HT. Kidney being uncharacteristically brutal and hooking Powell after half an hour, who was getting repeatedly caught at the base by Spencer. White makes an immediate impression and scores to edge LI in front just before HT.

White has had an interesting career trajectory hasn’t he. Seems to come through with a lot of hype at Leicester, then looked to be a bit of a nothing player for quite a while, but really seems to have found his feet recently. Very happy with his Scotland performances and seems to be playing with some real confidence and authority at the moment.

[Mellsblue]

Tight game. 10 - 12 at HT. Kidney being uncharacteristically brutal and hooking Powell after half an hour, who was getting repeatedly caught at the base by Spencer. White makes an immediate impression and scores to edge LI in front just before HT.

White has had an interesting career trajectory hasn’t he. Seems to come through with a lot of hype at Leicester, then looked to be a bit of a nothing player for quite a while, but really seems to have found his feet recently. Very happy with his Scotland performances and seems to be playing with some real confidence and authority at the moment.

He was heavily rumoured to spend a season at Bedford but it didn’t happen. That would stall anyone’s career. Glad he’s over the immense disappointment etc etc

[Mellsblue]

[FKAS]

Tight game. 10 - 12 at HT. Kidney being uncharacteristically brutal and hooking Powell after half an hour, who was getting repeatedly caught at the base by Spencer. White makes an immediate impression and scores to edge LI in front just before HT.

White has had an interesting career trajectory hasn’t he. Seems to come through with a lot of hype at Leicester, then looked to be a bit of a nothing player for quite a while, but really seems to have found his feet recently. Very happy with his Scotland performances and seems to be playing with some real confidence and authority at the moment.

White did really well to begin with but he faced quite a bit of competition for the emerging scrum half spot from Simmonds who he beat out for the spot and then JVP who he didn't. The move down to LI has been good for him, the more running based game suits him and off the field he's been able to move in with his other half a tennis player who was based down in London so presumably he's happier off the field as well as on it.

[Margin_Walker]

White's doing great at the moment. Really good fit for the team and is on top of his game.

Game ended up being fairly straight forward in the end after a close first half. Perhaps could have got a TBP if we'd gone for broke, rather than make the game safe with that last 3 points. Can't complaint though as our record at the rec is terrible, so would certainly have taken that pre game, given that and the strong team they fielded.

Thought the defence was key for LI. Some really savage gainline hits in that second half from the likes of Pearson and BJvR. For Bath, the lineout really went to pieces and the yellow cards kept them on the back foot. You can probably forgive the ones from McConnochie/Spencer (and Simmons for LI) defending their line, but the Fergus Lee Warner one for the late hit was a real coach killer.

[Puja]

Tight game. 10 - 12 at HT. Kidney being uncharacteristically brutal and hooking Powell after half an hour, who was getting repeatedly caught at the base by Spencer. White makes an immediate impression and scores to edge LI in front just before HT.

White has had an interesting career trajectory hasn’t he. Seems to come through with a lot of hype at Leicester, then looked to be a bit of a nothing player for quite a while, but really seems to have found his feet recently. Very happy with his Scotland performances and seems to be playing with some real confidence and authority at the moment.

White did really well to begin with but he faced quite a bit of competition for the emerging scrum half spot from Simmonds who he beat out for the spot and then JVP who he didn't. The move down to LI has been good for him, the more running based game suits him and off the field he's been able to move in with his other half a tennis player who was based down in London so presumably he's happier off the field as well as on it.

I never rated White at Leicester - he was talked up so consistently as the next big thing, even playing for England vs Barbarians effectively on hype alone, but whenever I saw him play, he was clunky and slow in decisions. He's just blossomed since the move though and especially since Scotland took a bit of a flyer on him and offered some trust. I'd still rather have JVP for both England and Leicester, but I can definitely see what the hype was about now.

Puja