Bath Rugby are on a twelve match
winning run at home, they haven’t lost in the Aviva Premiership since December 2013 and have secured the services of one of the most exciting Rugby League
players ever; Sam Burgess... that is certainly quite a list of achievements to accumulate
in just a few months. This
week I caught up with Kyle Eastmond to find out a
little more about life down in the West Country and look ahead to the rest of the season.
With such a winning record I was
intrigued to find out just how the players were feeling right now;
“Confidence is high at the
moment, the lads have been putting in some good performances but we are definitely
not feeling complacent at all. It's an exciting time to be part of Bath Rugby, as a squad we are working really hard, every
single day to try to improve our game, to try to become better players and overall
become a better team.”
Given the fact that they finished
7th last year I wanted to understand what the driving factors were
behind such an empathic 2013/14 season so far, and asked Kyle if he could pinpoint a
few for me. True to form like all loyal players Kyle didn’t give away any trade
secrets;
“There isn’t one person in
particular or one different factor that you can account this season to, the
squad has been building together and we are simply working extremely hard to
constantly develop and improve.”
This Friday Night Kyle and his teammates face a
huge test hosting Saracens at home; their opponents are 9 points ahead of them
in the table and looking ahead to the fixture my question to Kyle was simple;
“Where or how do you exploit Saracens?” The answer;
"Well we are going to try to
exploit them across the board really.... they are a great team, they have
strengths all over the pitch and we need to target them everywhere. We really need to be on our
game from 1 to 15 in order to get the result on Friday Night.”
You sense that with Bath’s
current form their playoff position is already secured and I wondered if their
thoughts were focused a little higher, so I asked whether second position in
the table was now the goal for them;
“Absolutely not, we never ever look beyond the next
game; we are fully focused on trying to do well in the next fixture and get a
win, nothing else comes into it.”
As we all know Kyle has
successfully made the transition from Rugby League and I certainly couldn’t let him go
without asking his thoughts on their sublime new signing;
“I’ve known Sam for a while,
since he was a young lad, and it is really exciting to have him as part of the
squad. Obviously making the transition is difficult, there is a lot to learn
but Sam’s attitude is outstanding and I’ve no doubt that he will do extremely
well here at Bath.”
It was clear from speaking to Kyle
that it is a fantastic time to be part of Bath Rugby,
confidence is high and everything is going pretty well right now. However the
loudest message that I heard was that fact that they are not satisfied and that
they still believe that they have an awful lot of work to do. Friday night’s
match against Saracens is a huge test for this team, it will test how far they have progressed and really define the rest of their season. There is no doubt that the squad are more than ready for it and underneath the beautiful Friday Night Lights of The Rec it will be a brutal encounter as these two Premiership giants battle it out for ultimate supremacy.
