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Rare full-back start for Orlando Bailey as Bath change five
By Jon Newcombe
Orlando Bailey has been handed his first start at full-back in almost two years as Bath head to Northampton with a starting XV showing five changes of personnel and one positional switch from last weekend's 68-10 demolition of Saracens.
Bailey, whose preferred position is fly-half, last donned the number 15 jersey normally worn by Tom de Glanville in a 19-19 draw away to Glasgow in the European Challenge Cup in January 2023, while his last start in the Premiership as the last line of defence came in a 40-23 defeat at Leicester in November 2021.
The 23-year-old's inclusion for Sunday's re-enactment of last year's final is one of two changes to the backline with the other seeing his close friend, Max Ojomoh, selected at inside-centre in place of Cam Redpath. Both players make their first starts of the league campaign.
Will Stuart, meanwhile, gets the nod to start at tight head prop, Ross Molony partners Quinn Roux in the second row, and Miles Reid returns to the XV, this time at openside, which results in Guy Pepper shifting to the number six jersey.
Reserve hooker Kepu Tuipulotu has been rewarded for his performances in the Premiership Rugby Cup with a place on the bench and is in line to make his Premiership debut.
Bath Rugby v Northampton (a): 1 Beno Obano, 2 Tom Dunn, 3 Will Stuart, 4 Quinn Roux, 5 Ross Molony, 6 Guy Pepper, 7 Miles Reid, 8 Alfie Barbeary, 9 Ben Spencer, 10 Finn Russell, 11 Will Muir, 12 Max Ojomoh, 13 Ollie Lawrence, 14 Joe Cokanasiga, 15 Orlando Bailey.
Replacements: 16 Kepu Tuipulotu, 17 Francois van Wyk, 18 Thomas du Toit, 19 Charlie Ewels, 20 Sam Underhill, 21 Louis Schreuder, 22 Josh Bayliss, 23 Jaco Coetzee.
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Reiko has just not been able to gel on attack with any version of the backline around him. All other options will be giving something up on D, but he is probably in the bottom quartile of attacking centres in NZ. Despite being big, powerful and fast he is surprisingly easy to contain as the article points out. I think he went backwards in 2024 for picking lines and connecting with players around him. Numerous examples of 10/12/15 all zigging while Reiko is zagging.
LF coming back is an exciting prospect, but definitely seems to be a position fairly low on options. Billy Proctor obviously right up there but he had some serious defensive wobbles in his two games so far against fairly average opposition, but below that there aren't that many guys pushing for higher honours. Sullivan (when fit for 1 game per season) always looks dangerous, Macleod, Aumua, Umaga-Jensen.
ALB is a conundrum - 81 tests but not consistently excellent enough to own the shirt even after 8 seasons in the team - that must be rare in itself for so many coaches to see a player as the second best option to so many different players starting ahead of him. It's normally the type of thing you see with a halfback or hooker who is behind someone absolutely world class.
Go to commentsI think in the past high schools played rugby in Sydney so this was a great way of building the game. I could be wrong but I believe some of the schoolboy Australian sides in the 80s were made up from guys who went to regular high schools not like now where it's mostly a small number of big private schools. Hard to rebuild that though as it's been neglected for decades! A winning waratah side would be a start. The Shute shield only has 1 team in Western sydney....and 10 from the North/East so most in the west don't even know what it is.
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