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Hooper: Bath changing room 'gutted' after Clermont rout
By Online Editors
Bath director of rugby Stuart Hooper bemoaned a shocking first-half performance as his team were hammered 52-26 by Clermont Auvergne in the Heineken Champions Cup.
Hooper’s men were 40-14 down at the break after conceding six tries as Clermont recorded a bonus point inside just 20 minutes.
Alivereti Raka and George Moala both grabbed doubles after tries from John Ulugia and Damian Penaud, before well-beaten Bath regrouped in the second half to grab a bonus point of their own.
Hooper said: “It was always going to be a tough ask to come here and win. In the first half we were absolutely nowhere near where we needed to be.
“We made error upon error and gave a quick and powerful team the opportunity to get into the game. We were out there, but not competing.
“As we went into the second half we talked about giving ourselves an opportunity and scoring four tries was the outcome of that.
“Clermont are a quality team and when we gave up possession and penalties it gave them an opportunity.
“When we get under pressure we need to be better at adapting to that. We have to address it and get more width in our defence.
“The changing room is obviously gutted. No one in there wants to put in that sort of performance and rightly so.
“We can’t be in a position where that is acceptable and we need to respond now going into the London Irish week.”
Camille Lopez and Jake McIntyre completed Clermont’s eight-try haul after the break, but the French side did not hit the same heights in the second half.
Jack Walker and Ruaridh McConnochie scored for Bath before the break and the visitors did rally as the game went on.
It allowed Tom Dunn and Josh Bayliss to both score and secure the bonus point before Sam Nixon was yellow carded for cynically trying to stop a Clermont attack.
Clermont are now a point behind Ulster at the top of Pool 3.
Number eight Fritz Lee said: “Credit to our team, it wasn’t an easy game. We score a lot of tries in the first 20 minutes of games, but then it’s a challenge physically and mentally.
“This win will give us massive confidence. Ulster’s win over Harlequins made it difficult for us and every single point matters.
“We have to focus on ourselves and not focus on anybody else. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies, but we are looking forward to playing against Ulster.
“I think we have the team to go all the way, it’s just a matter of injuries.
“Hopefully some guys will come back to help us and we’ve got a massive opportunity with two games to go.”
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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