Bath Vs Bristol

[FKAS]

Bath: de Glanville; Rokoduguni, Joseph, Clark, Butt; Cipriani, Spencer; Morozov, Doughty, Rae, Williams, Richards, Bayliss (capt), Underhill, Faletau.

Replacements: du Toit, Boyce, Fia, Spencer, Coetzee, Simpson, Bailey, Cokanasiga.

Bristol: Lloyd; Naulago, Radradra, Frisch, Leiua; Sheedy, Lennon; Woolmore, Thacker, Armstrong, Attwood, Joyce (capt), Vui, Heenan, Jeffries.

Replacements: Byrne, Y Thomas, Challenger, Luatua, D Thomas, Strang, Eden, O'Conor.

[Peej]

No Mojo? Injury or rest?

[Which Tyler]

No Mojo? Injury or rest?

Unavailable due to injury, loan or international duty: Tom Ellis, Cameron Redpath, Juan Schoeman, Beno Obano, Anthony Watson, Ruaridh McConnochie, Tom Dunn, Johannes Jonker, Tian Schoeman, Gabriel Hamer-Webb, Ethan Staddon, Josh McNally, Miles Reid, Will Muir, Darren Atkins, Kieran Verden, Max Green, Nathan Hughes, Charlie Ewels and Will Stuart.

[p/d]

Bath on fire

[Which Tyler]

Bath on fire

[Which Tyler]

Only plus side today is that Pearce is actually trying to speed up the game and cut the time wasting.
He's largely failing, but he's constantly chivvying them along.

Otherwise, Bristol have out tight 5 on toast (I can't escape the feeling I've said that about Bath's opponents before), and everything is coming from that.

Thankfully, Bristol just refuse to play with 15 (or even 14) men on the pitch.

I'll also say that the wind seems to be absolutely evil out there; against Bath in the first half - couple of clearance kicks barely went forwards at all, 1 try conversion didn't even reach the try line

[p/d]

Bath on fire

[Which Tyler]

Vicious (but legal, I guess) by Challenger there.
Ruck, Ben Spencer goes fishing for the ball, kinda on his feet, Challenger steams in - targets the arm, to hurt, not to remove

[Which Tyler]

24 : 24
7 min to go

[Which Tyler]

PT to seal it?


No, but it comes down to "probable" vs "almost certain"
Big call, I'm NOT jealous of the ref.

TBF, Pearce has been MOTM for me

[Which Tyler]

Table.jpg

[Beasties]

Lol.

[Spiffy]

Is Cockanasiga fit? Around 45 mins he was released on the left wing with the line beckoning but looked really short of gas and was easily defended. He did later score a try but it was a walk in from 5 meters.

[Which Tyler]

Is Cockanasiga fit? Around 45 mins he was released on the left wing with the line beckoning but looked really short of gas and was easily defended. He did later score a try but it was a walk in from 5 meters.

It's his second match of the season, so certainly not match fit, no.

Last year, after his 12 month lay-off, he took about 3-4 80 minute appearances to look properly fit, and even then he didn't trust his body.
He's already shown more "trust in his body" in 65 minutes this season, than he did in 1300 minutes last year.

Well, nearly, there'll be some exaggeration for effect, and some rose-tinted that I can't control.


ETA: Just having a look at last night's stats - in 39 minutes, he ran 66m in 7 carries, only Rocco and Ewan Richards (!) went further with 75m in 10 and 72m in 7 carries (WTF? surely there's a mistake there - still 19 btw)
For comparison, Will Butt, who started on that wing, managed 8m in 5 carries. Fullback TdG made 55m in 9.

Maybe he's fitter than I thought.

[jimKRFC]

About sums up Bristols season to date - do some things really well, build a lead then proceed to do stupid things (Naulago), give away stupid pens & yellows (Strang) and make stupid decisions (take 3 and not go to the corner when you have their pack stuffed)...

Well done to Bath but I think Joyce had it right when he said Bristol beat themselves.

There are few posters on the unofficial board now starting with the Lam doesn't know what he's doing and his plan doesn't work. Ignoring (in this and other games) the plan has worked well enough to be 21 - 0 up. Pretty certain training this week didn't go:
PL "Siva, you've had a two week ban for high tackles. Can you please go and do exactly the same thing this week and get another Red?"
SN "sure boss"

[Which Tyler]

About sums up Bristols season to date - do some things really well, build a lead then proceed to do stupid things (Naulago), give away stupid pens & yellows (Strang) and make stupid decisions (take 3 and not go to the corner when you have their pack stuffed)...

Well done to Bath but I think Joyce had it right when he said Bristol beat themselves.

There are few posters on the unofficial board now starting with the Lam doesn't know what he's doing and his plan doesn't work. Ignoring (in this and other games) the plan has worked well enough to be 21 - 0 up. Pretty certain training this week didn't go:
PL "Siva, you've had a two week ban for high tackles. Can you please go and do exactly the same thing this week and get another Red?"
SN "sure boss"

As is often the case, you did well enough dealing with the red (easier when it's a winger who's off); it was the times down to 13 that did for you.

In that respect, similar to Bath against Wasps and a few other matches the last couple of years.


As for Pat and the plan - the plan was unusual, you knew we were underpowered in the pack, and you knew our entire first choice tight 5 were out, and our only specialist lock was just back from injury. So you kept it tight, and beat the crap out of us up front (not helped by Morozov's personal discipline) - and got 3 quick tries through the plan - which I'm sure is what kept Morozov on the pitch as it kinda resets the repeat offence thing.

First yellow came from pressure (and could have been a PT and yellow for Sheedy's first knock-on - Ref called it as 1 on 1 outside, because Butt IIRC was glued to his wing, and was only briefly in shot - had Pearce seen Butt out there, and a 2-on-1, and you'd expect the PT to be given).
Red was... idiocy... I just can't think of an alternative - it wasn't a rush of blood, it wasn't part of any plan, it was just... repeating the same mistake he made the last time he was on a rugby pitch. He won't get any mitigation there.

You had that match (I'd say due to Bath errors, but there's a good chance that's my bias) until the last 90-odd seconds when Lloyd was so determined to remove that most potent of counter-ruckers Danny Cipriani - and from there Bath actually had the momentum.

Final controversy was the potential penalty try along with Strang's yellow - it was yellow all day every day; and without him, Bayliss would have been first to the ball, and Strang's own actions take him out of the equation. For me (unusually as a Bath fan) Bayliss would be first to the ball, but heading straight towards 2 Bristol defenders - who both look like they're behind the try line (but would they be if it was a blue shirt rather than white leaping onto the ball) the ball is bouncing, so we don't know if he'd have a clean pick-up (though Strang did)... there's enough doubt that it comes down to where your bar for "probable try" is.
Given the previous decision on Sheedy's knock-on, I think the it's consistent to have a high bar there.

[fivepointer]

Bris are badly missing their SH's and THP's. That and a few players who were so good last season just arent firing (Radradra, POC, Sheedy)
No coach can stop players doing dumb things. Its really inexcusable for Naulago to get a 2nd red card within a few weeks for the same offence.

[jimKRFC]

Was chatting to a friend that watched live (a bath fan) and he was saying that at 21-0 every time it looked like Bris would kill off Bath they'd do something stupid...

Think you've covered my point though - the plan was working 21-0 then the players implode. Fair enough there is blame for Pat but think the players need to shoulder a lot of it for brain dead play.

Naulago is looking at 6 weeks now I should think, perhaps this time it will actually sink in. It's a shame as he doesn't need to go high as he's a really strong tackler anyway.

[Puja]

I'm starting to think that last season was the anomaly and this is the reversion to the mean. Briz have a few very high quality players in their squad, but they also have a lot of very average ones as well. Lam can't be expected to get gold every time out of a team of mostly average + 4-5 superstars, especially when his luck runs out and some of the superstars get injured.

Puja

[jimKRFC]

I'm starting to think that last season was the anomaly and this is the reversion to the mean. Briz have a few very high quality players in their squad, but they also have a lot of very average ones as well. Lam can't be expected to get gold every time out of a team of mostly average + 4-5 superstars, especially when his luck runs out and some of the superstars get injured.

It could well be that last season was a bit of freak one, since taking over Lams record is:
17/18 promotion to prem
18/19 8th
19/20 3rd
20/21 1st

This season it looks it'll be 10th.. I think we had more players out last year, but crucially not in the same spot so more players were out it meant 2nd choice players were in rather than 6th choice scrum halves, 4th choice THP etc..

There have been a bunch of games where the collapse can pretty much be put down to a player cock up (Bath (a), London Irish x 2, Worces) and 16 more points make things look a bit brighter in the table.

Would agree that we have too many make weights in the squad though and would really like to see the academy lads given more time now. Top 6 is gone so make the most of the development time we can give them.

[Which Tyler]

Bris are badly missing their SH's and THP's.

Yep.
Bath have suffered both types of injury crisis recently.
A few years ago we had absolutely nobody in the backrow, and you just had to go into every game knowing that're just going to get trounced in that area of play, and that a win is virutally impossible against any semi-competent opponent.
This year, we're suffering horrendous numbers of injuries, but fairly evenly spread across the whole squad.

The former feels like a far better excuse - because in 1 or 2 positions, you're down to players who siply aren't good enough; whilst the latter, you're talking about 2nd or 3rd choices senior professionals - who you'd expect to be able to do a reasonable job and put up a fight. Of course, at times this seasons, we've had both.

Results suggest otherwise, but I'd rather have 2nd choice in all positions than 6th choice in 2.

[jimKRFC]

I'm starting to think that last season was the anomaly and this is the reversion to the mean. Briz have a few very high quality players in their squad, but they also have a lot of very average ones as well. Lam can't be expected to get gold every time out of a team of mostly average + 4-5 superstars, especially when his luck runs out and some of the superstars get injured.

You might have a point to be honest - last season Semi was winning us stuff we shouldn't have, season before CP did the same. It could well be that the general squad is lower third and the marquees hacve earnt their wage!

p.s - 102 - 7!! Who did you play?

[Puja]

p.s - 102 - 7!! Who did you play?

Warminster 2nds had a bad day at the office. Although, fair play to them, they put a side out (not always guaranteed at the moment), they kept playing even through what must've been a fairly unfun game (I've been on the other end of such a game before - don't recommend), and they didn't get shitty or nasty even in trying circumstances. Not their fault they were up against a bullocking hooker in the very peak of form - no defence could've stood up to that level of quality.

Puja

[Which Tyler]

[p/d]

p.s - 102 - 7!! Who did you play?

Warminster 2nds had a bad day at the office. Although, fair play to them, they put a side out (not always guaranteed at the moment), they kept playing even through what must've been a fairly unfun game (I've been on the other end of such a game before - don't recommend), and they didn't get shitty or nasty even in trying circumstances. Not their fault they were up against a bullocking hooker in the very peak of form - no defence could've stood up to that level of quality.

Puja

Did the bullocking hooker slip off a tackle to see the Warminster 10 land the try of the game?