Yesterday’s gone says defiant Sam
UNDERHILL: BATH MUST LOOK FORWARD
SAM UNDERHILL says Bath cannot get hung up on their glorious past if they are to reverse the current slump.
The England flanker is still coming to terms with Sunday’s 71-17 hammering by Saracens – their heaviest home league defeat.
It brought humiliation to a club that built its reputation on winning six English titles, 10 national cups and being the first to bring the European Cup to these shores. The Bath of today are winless and prop up the Premiership after their poorest start to a season since 2001.
Owner Bruce Craig remains “hugely supportive” according to director of rugby Stuart Hooper, but he admitted: “That result will always be there, we can’t change that, it’s an historic event.”
Hooper revealed that Craig had spoken to him “about how we make sure this is the lowest point” and conceded that, with an away trip to champions Harlequins up next, there is no simple solution.
But England back-row star Underhill refuses to get weighed down by unflattering comparisons to what the club achieved before he was born.
“There’s not an awful lot of room in the professional game for nostalgia,” said Underhill. “I don’t know players who played here 20-30 years ago. It might as well have been a different club.
“Yeah the badge is the same and there’s obviously an element of pride [in what was achieved] but, to be honest, the pride relevant to me concerns the people I’m playing with now.”
But a storied club such as Bath, housed slap bang in the middle of a rugby-mad city, cannot hope to divorce itself from past achievements.
Underhill might be right that the game now is “so different” to five years ago, let alone 10 or 20, but as Liverpool or Manchester United football clubs will tell him, fans don’t think like that. “I do understand that history is important to fans,” said Underhill.
“But my job isn’t to think about that. I’m 25, I’m a player. I’ll turn up and train and play as well as I can. That’s my job.
“It is a professional sport now. You can’t be purely emotionally driven. There is still a place for emotion and nostalgia but, as a player, you have to be more clinical than that.”
Underhill said Bath were trying to change their style of play and that it took time.
“I understand the frustration but I would never question the commitment of people here,” he added. “If it was dead easy to come up with the winning formula, everyone would do it. It’s hard. It takes time.”
Pro game doesn’t do nostalgia