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'Disgraceful what we saw today, disrespectful to the occasion'
By Liam Heagney
Ugo Monye has described Saturday’s Bath display as disgraceful – they were humiliated 64-0 at Gloucester and stay bottom of the Premiership after leaking ten tries without reply. Bath director of rugby Stuart Hooper had spoken earlier this week about his ambition to not finish in 13th and last place even though there is no relegation this season.
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“Of course, we want to make sure we put ourselves in that position. There is absolutely an opportunity to do that, picking up those wins to take us off the bottom. We will be doing everything we possibly can,” said Hooper to RugbyPass on Thursday about the possibility of Bath overtaking fellow strugglers Newcastle and Worcester.
However, Bath were torn asunder by playoff-chasing Gloucester and their abject display was heavily criticised in the aftermath by Monye during his appearance as a BT Sport pundit. “A word on Bath, I know what the Bath fans are going to be like when they go back there later this evening, they are going to be absolutely furious,” queried presenter Craig Doyle pitchside at Kingsholm.
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“It was disgraceful what we saw today,” replied Monye. “We have covered a lot of Premiership matches over the years and I am struggling to think of the last time I saw such an apathetic, non-committed performance in such a big game.
“To be nilled, and that can happen with the quality of players that they [Gloucester] have, but the fundamentals, this is a West Country derby and it didn’t look like it. I thought it was disrespectful to the occasion. A lot of questions need to be answered, that is for sure from a Bath perspective.”
Doyle quickly asked a follow-up question. “From a player’s perspective, from a coach’s perspective, where does that lie?” Monye added: “Well, it’s not good enough. You can’t just be wanting the season to finish because the season hasn’t.”
While hapless Bath are rock bottom in the Premiership, Gloucester are flying high in fifth place just one point behind the fourth-place Northampton with two rounds of fixtures remaining. Their coach George Skivington gave a special post-game message to skipper Lewis Ludlow.
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“The group are unbelievably tight,” he said. “That is easy to say as a coach but they genuinely are a very tight group and Lewis leads that. The applause that he got as he came off the field is testament to what he gives every week to the club and what the people think of him here.”
