Dunn will meet fire with fire in fight for a home semi-final
SELFLESS Tom Dunn has thanked his Bath teammates for propelling him into the national spotlight.
The locally-born hooker inspired Bath to a famous comeback win against Gloucester in the penultimate round of the Premiership, scoring two tries and putting in an impressive all-round shift.
It drew praise from TV pundit Austin Healey who noted that the watching Lions head coach, Warren Gatland, could do worse than pick the 27-year-old uncapped player as a bolter for next summer’s tour to South Africa.
“I’m really pleased but the way I play is massively reliant on the people around me and the team playing well,” said Dunn, who has scored four tries since the restart.
“It is much easier to carry on the front foot,” he added. “It is much easier to defend when you’ve got people hitting line speed either side of you; it is much easier in the set piece when things are going well and you’ve got Charlie Ewels calling fantastically well and you’ve got Beno Obano and Will Stuart scrummaging fantastically well.
“For me, it is about the next game and putting my best foot forward.”
Dunn made 21 carries and 12 tackles in the Gloucester clash and has the commitment, work-rate and desire that endears him to The Rec faithful.
And another storming display will be needed if he is to get the better of Jamie George and help Bath secure a prized home semifinal.
“You’ve got to beat the best to be the best, so we’re not fazed by it; we want to go all the way to the 24th of October, so this is basically a quarter-final for us,” he said.
“It’s a big day for Saracens. They are a pretty tight group, everyone knows that in the Premiership, and they’ve got some boys finishing up who’ve had fantastic careers and they’ll want to put them in a good place when they leave.
“So they’re going to come all guns blazing. They’re probably going to have a lot of emotion and frustration with the situation they find themselves in and we’ll have to match it and beat it.”
With Exeter sending a fringe squad to the Ricoh today, Wasps will be favourites to finish behind the Chiefs.
It would make Bath’s 27-23 home defeat to Wasps at the end of August all the more painful should that occur.
“Obviously if we don’t win this weekend it would haunt us because it was a game that got away,” Dunn admitted.
“We were capable of beating Wasps and we didn’t. If you put those four or five points onto our tally now, we’d be under a lot less pressure.”
Fly-half Rhys Priestland will make his 100th appearance for Bath with Ben Spencer at scrum-half against his former club.
Lock Josh McNally replaces Elliott Stooke, who drops out of the 23 to allow Will Spencer a place on the bench. Mike Williams comes in for Tom Ellis on the blindside flank.
Saracens captain Brad Barritt will not be signing off on home turf due to the head knock he sustained against Racing 92 last week.
Instead, Dom Morris and Juan Pablo Socino pair up in midfield, with Richard Barrington and Callum Hunter-Hill replacing Mako Vunipola and Michael Rhodes up front. Richard Wigglesworth will make his 250th and final appearance for the club.