‘You must hurt together if you are ever to grow. Freddie fronted up’
Stuart Hooper is the future at Bath but tells Mick Cleary this week has been about Burns
On a damp, gloomy midweek afternoon at the Recreation Ground, it was not easy to envisage the sunny uplands that Bath are striving for, all the more so when their short-term aspirations in Europe had been so crushingly undone by a moment of madness from Freddie Burns only a few days earlier against Toulouse.
Yet an hour in the company of Stuart Hooper, the man who was quick to console Burns at the final whistle, brings a whole new upbeat perspective, both in the immediate need for taking points from Wasps at the Ricoh Arena today in order to rekindle their Champions’ Cup hopes, and in articulating how he intends to drive Bath back towards the summit of the game when he takes over control of all rugby matters in 2020.
In an unprecedented piece of forward planning, the club announced three weeks ago that Hooper, the longest-serving Bath captain until a back injury forced him into retirement in 2016 and on to the management team, would be the anointed one, taking over the reins not just from current director of rugby, Todd Blackadder, but charged with restoring the glory days at the Rec. From glory days to gory days, Bath’s fall from grace has been long-running.
It is 20 years since they won the European Cup, longer still since they dominated the league. The random, ad-hoc nature of their performances over the past couple of decades was somehow encapsulated in the Burns cock-up when he prematurely celebrated a try only to have the ball knocked from his grasp. What should have been a good news story became a tale of woe and internal torment.
Hooper does not duck the significance of the moment. “None of us, including Freddie, shy away from what happened,” he says. “That is unacceptable from anyone in a Bath shirt. But that does not mean that we do not support each other. You have to hurt together if you are ever to grow together. Freddie fronted up. He knew it wasn’t right. There have been frank discussions. Yes, we have our plans for the future. But the future is also always about what happens tomorrow, about going to the Ricoh in this instance and performing.”
Bath have been bankrolled by multi-millionaire Bruce Craig yet have found no stability or consistent success. Coaches have come and coaches have gone. The Craig chequebook could land any high-profile coach in the world. Yet Bath have backed Hooper, raw and untested. This a Grand Designs project, a rebuild with deep foundations. But why Hooper and not a Warren Gatland or Steve Hansen or Joe Schmidt, all of whom might be available post the 2019 Rugby World Cup?
“Fair question,” said Hooper. “There is no such thing as a cookiecut director-of-rugby figure to be had. You can parachute someone in or you can grow from within. There is risk involved in change.
“Bath have spent a huge amount of time researching highperformance sports teams and have tried chucking the keys at someone and telling them to make it work. This is on a wholly different scale. It is about development, sports science, pathways, structures and systems, being in tune with our fans and community, too.
“As for me, I was never the standout player that won caps, but I did have an eye for the future. I won’t be a primary coach, we will appoint there, but I will be responsible for what happens on the field.”
Hooper, 36, a father of four boys, put himself through a business management and leadership degree at the Open University while still locking out the Bath scrum. He has always thrived on being busy, pointing out at one point that there are 10,080 minutes in a week, with the 80-minute match the focal point of what goes on in the other preparatory 10,000 minutes, and has been mentored by Stuart Lancaster, his former coach at Leeds, with whom he is still in touch. Hooper is an admirer of the way Lancaster’s employers, Leinster, as well as the likes of Exeter Chiefs and Saracens, have gone about their business.
“You can’t just copy others and we won’t,” said Hooper. “But they have all built from within. We want to create a Bath style and already we have coaches at Bath University and Beechen Cliff nurturing young players in our way, hopefully ready to come through to us in four or five years.”
There is more, far more. The academy manager, Andy Rock, will move up to look after all aspects of high performance. The longawaited 18,000-capacity new stadium finally looks as if it is going to happen, with the second public consultation scheduled for Dec 2. The training complex at 19thcentury Farleigh House is lavishly endowed. Yet is there not a danger that comfort can breed complacency?
“Lifting a 100kg weight at Farleigh is no different to lifting 100kg at Lambridge [Bath’s old down-to-earth training site],” said Hooper. “Might a player be enticed to come because Bath is nice and all that? Yes, but that is not who we want here. We love our heritage and see the former achievements