Premiership team-by-team previews: Bath
Bath finished last season with four consecutive victories, their best run for three years. They scored 175 points and 24 tries to claim the Premiership's final place in the European Champions Cup, no insignificant achievement for a side that had lost its first six matches. It was Johann van Graan's first season in charge and the South African gradually turned a team that had become used to losing into one that can approach the new season with, for the first time in a while, optimism.
Bath have in the past had a high turnover in the close season, but this year the emphasis has been on quality rather than quantity. The Scotland outside-half Finn Russell is the headline signing, arriving from Racing 92 with the brief to fire a backline that has guile and power in the midfield and strength and pace out wide.
The pack has been fortified by the arrival of the Springbok prop Thomas du Toit, who weighs more than 20st and can pack down on either side of the scrum. He is known as the Tank, but the belief of Bath supporters is that the seasons of tanking are over and that the club should be in the shake-up for the play-offs.
Du Toit is one of three international props in the squad along with Will Stuart, who is part of England's World Cup squad, and Beno Obano. Charlie Ewels is fit again after missing the whole of last season while in the back row lurking Sam Underhill, Ted Hill and Alfie Barbeary, who deserves some fortune after a couple of injury plagued campaigns.
Bath's campaign starts with a home match against the one team they achieved the double over last season, Newcastle. Then they travel to champions Saracens, who were beaten 61-29 in the final match of the regular season last May having rested their front line players ahead of the play-offs.
What was lost in Bath's poor start to last season was that many of their defeats were by small margins, starting with the 31-29 reverse at Bristol in the opening round. They picked up two bonus points at Saracens, lost by five at Exeter having conceded a penalty attacking the Chiefs' line in the final minute and were leading at Sale in the final seconds when Arron Reed's try made it 30-27 to the Sharks.
It showed they could mix it with the best and they finished 11 points behind fourthplaced Northampton. Van Graan said from the outset he expected the season to be a slow burn as the players got used to his methods and that the results would follow once the attacking game took shape.
He was proved right and among the recruits in the off-season was Lee Blackett, who was the head coach at Wasps when they went under a year ago. Attack will be his brief and in a 10-team league, a slow start will be harder to recover from – and between rounds two and seven, they face all of last season's top four.
PREDICTED FINISH: 4TH
INS AND OUTS
Players in: Finn Russell (Bath), Thomas du Toit (Sharks), Mikey Summerfield (London Irish)
Players out: Richard de Carpentier (retired), Frankie Read (released), Dave Attwood (retired), Darren Atkins (released), Tom Doughty (released), Max Green (released), Gabriel Hammer-Webb (released), Valery Morozov (released), Will Spencer (released), Wesley White (released), Fergus Lee-Warner (released), Jordan Venter (Bedford Blues), Jonathan Joseph (Biarritz), Billy Searle (Toulouse), D'Arcy Rae (Montpellier)
DoR: Johann van Graan
Captain: Ben Spencer
Ground: The Rec
Capacity: 14,509
2023-24 SQUAD
Forwards: Archie Griffin, Arthur Cordwell, Beno Obano, Johannes Jonker, Juan Schoeman, Kieran Verden, Thomas Du Toit, Will Stuart, John Stewart, Niall Annett, Tom Dunn, Charlie Ewels, Ewan Richards, Josh Mcnally, Quinn Roux, Alfie Barbeary, Chris Cloete. Fergus Lee-Warner, GJ Van Velze, Jaco Coetzee, JJ Tonks, Josh Bayliss, Miles Reid, Nahum Merigan, Sam Underhill, Ted Hill
Backs: Ben Spencer, Louis Schreuder, Tom Carr-Smith, Cameron Redpath, Finn Russell, Orlando Bailey, Piers Francis, Tom De Glanville, Max Ojomoh, Max Wright, Ollie Lawrence, Will Butt, Gabe Goss, George Worboys, Joe Cokanasiga, Will Muir, Matt Gallagher, Ruaridh McConnochie
