Bath vs Quins - Friday night

[Puja]

Bath Rugby: 15 Matt Gallagher, 14 Joe Cokanasiga, 13 Ollie Lawrence, 12 Cameron Redpath, 11 Will Butt, 10 Orlando Bailey, 9 Ben Spencer ©; 1 Valeriy Morozov, 2 Tom Dunn, 3 D’Arcy Rae, 4 Dave Attwood, 5 Fergus Lee-Warner, 6 Ted Hill, 7 Miles Reid, 8 Josh Bayliss

Replacements: 16 Niall Annett, 17 Arthur Cordwell, 18 Johannes Jonker, 19 Will Spencer, 20 Tom Ellis, 21 Max Green, 22 Piers Francis, 23 Richard de Carpentier


Harlequins:

1. Joe Marler
2. Jack Walker
3. Wilco Louw
4. Dino Lamb
5. Irne Herbst
6. Jack Kenningham
7. Will Evans
8. Alex Dombrandt – Captain
9. Danny Care
10. Tommy Allan
11. Josh Bassett
12. Andre Esterhuizen
13. Oscar Beard
14. Cadan Murley
15. Nick David

Replacements:
16. George Head
17. Fin Baxter
18. Simon Kerrod
19. George Hammond
20. Archie White
21. Lewis Gjaltema
22. Will Edwards
23. Lennox Anyanwu

[Puja]

Two months ago, you'd say this is Harlequins by 30+. Nowadays, you'd say Bathcester Warriors have more than a puncher's chance here. You'd've thought scrumtime would be uncomfortable with Marler/Louw up against Morozov/Rae, but elsewhere, that's an interesting lineup.

Good to see Will Spencer's nth comeback. Hope he goes well. Fun to see that Bath have gone from no fit back rowers to fielding a 6:2 bench.

Puja

[Mellsblue]

If Bath can keep that 10-12-13 together only good things will happen.

[Danno]

We really need to figure out what happens post-Care

[FKAS]

We really need to figure out what happens post-Care

A) Quins fans have been saying that for about five years.

B) I reckon he'll be going after Wigglesworth's record.

[Mikey Brown]

Yeah I just don’t get it. Barely gave Gjaltema any minutes last season and Steele has disappeared completely. Now I’ve seen a bit more of Gjaltema this season I can see why that happened.

Are we waiting for him to go before picking up another star with his salary? Seems risky. Would have loved to grab Simpson/Porter while they were available but I guess that wasn’t an option for us.

Any promising academy guys?

Also very keen to have a proper look at this current version of Bath. It’s nice to see them do well and there’s only a little bit of resentment there.

[Puja]

Bath could've won this game several times over were it not for their shambolic set piece. They've been bullied in the scrums and given away half a dozen penalties, and they've failed to convert so many penalty kicks to the corner.

13-19 and they've just got one last penalty in the 80th minute to try and get the try from the lineout.

Puja

[Puja]

Harlequins went down to 13 men with yellow cards, Bath kept spamming the kick to the corner, Bath kept failing to score, and eventually turn it over to end the game. There's a fairly reasonable argument that they should have had a penalty try for the last penalty and yellow, but even so, that game was utterly thrown away with poor drills.

Puja

[Which Tyler]

Quins comfortably the better team, largely based on their tight dominance. No idea how we kept them to 19 points.
Somehow though, Bath should have won that.

That last maul (not just the last one, but especially that) was just bad

[FKAS]

Joe Marler is a nightmare to interview. Love it.

[Puja]

Marler is going full weird in his post-match interview. Just tormenting the interviewer by being very difficult.

Puja

[padprop]

Yeah wasn’t a fan of that interview. Bit high on his own supply. Don’t think he would have talked to Bayfield like that.

[fivepointer]

Marler is now a full on "character". Can be fun, equally can be just tiresome. His reaction to getting hit legitimately by Attwood had the touch of a prima donna about it.
Bath will rue their failure to convert driving mauls, but Quins will reflect on the dominance they enjoyed in the 1st half and inability to convert that into points.

[Which Tyler]

Bath will rue their failure to convert driving mauls, but Quins will reflect on the dominance they enjoyed in the 1st half and inability to convert that into points.

I'm thinking both teams will be unhappy about that one

[Mikey Brown]

I’m dreading seeing this Marler interview, but feel curiosity will get the better of me.

[Epaminondas Pules]

Just watched it. Shit me why does Spencer take so long to set himself before passing! He’s not a meercat like Youngs but shite he’s slow! Bath should feel like that was one they should’ve won. But should’ve and did and worlds apart!