Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Lawrence thrown straight into derby
Bath select on-loan Worcester centre for West Country clash against Gloucester
OLLIE Lawrence goes straight into the Bath Rugby starting line-up to face West Country rivals Gloucester in the Gallagher Premiership this afternoon.
Lawrence arrived at the Rec on loan from stricken Worcester earlier in the week and immediately takes his place in the Blue, Black & Whites’ backline, alongside his old England Under-20 colleague Cam Redpath.
Ted Hill, Fergus Lee-Warner and Valery Morozov, who all made loan moves from Worcester to Bath at the same time as Lawrence, are not in the matchday 23. In all, Bath head of rugby Johann van Graan makes six changes to his starting XV.
Homegrown number eight Nahum Merigan comes in for his first league start after impressing during the Premiership Rugby Cup, and he is joined in the back row by Tom Ellis, who makes his first Premiership start for eight months following injury.
Dave Attwood returns at lock to face one of his former clubs, with Piers Francis chosen at fly-half.
The front row remains the same as last weekend as Tom Dunn captains from hooker, with Juan Schoeman and Will Stuart propping either side of him. Lock Quinn Roux and flanker Miles Reid complete the pack.
Louis Schreuder continues in the nine jersey, while Gabriel HamerWebb, Joe Cokanasiga and Matt Gallagher retain their places in the back three after a try each at London Irish last time out.
Van Graan will be tasting the BathGloucester rivalry for the first time in the Premiership, and he said: “I am looking forward to it.
“It is the first Bath-Gloucester game I have been involved with, but
there is a lot of hurt from last season’s games and we have got to show there is pride in this team.
“We have had a lot of disruption in the first four weeks, but it is not about looking back, it is about looking forward and I have challenged the group to perform for 80 minutes.”
Bath lost 47-38 at London Irish last weekend after trailing 35-5 at the break, and Van Graan insists his team has to improve.
He said: “If you score six tries away from home you should win more games than you lose.
“To leak 35 points in a half is unacceptable, not good enough.
“I can take the positive that we came back and won the second half 33-12, scoring six tries, but we’ve got to be better. We have to be more defensively resilient. Some of the tries we conceded were too soft and they got momentum too quickly.
“We have finished the past two games very strongly, but we have to play rugby for 80 minutes. We’ve got to keep working on that mentality to make sure we are tough to beat, which we were for 40 minutes, but for the other 40 we weren’t.”
For Gloucester, Argentina duo Matias Alemanno and Santiago Carreras return to the starting XV.
Fellow Argentina international Santiago Socino starts in the front row with props Val Rapava-Ruskin and Fraser Balmain.
Freddie Clarke partners Alemanno in the second row in his first game since announcing a deal extension.
Ruan Ackermann and Albert
Tuisue start in the back row along with club captain Lewis Ludlow, who makes his first Premiership appearance of the season.
Ben Meehan and Adam Hastings continue as half-backs with Mark Atkinson at inside centre. Giorgi Kveseladze makes his first league start of the season, replacing Chris Harris at outside centre.
Carreras replaces Ollie Thorley in the back three, where he joins Louis Rees-Zammit and Lloyd Evans.
Gloucester had a weekend off seven days ago due to Worcester’s suspension from the league, with their previous outing being an agonising defeat to Saracens.
Head coach George Skivington told the official club website: “We have used the break positively, and taken a lot from the Saracens game.
“There are bits we would have liked to have done better, so it’s given us lots of time to address things, lots of time out on the pitch to try to work hard to be better.
“I have really enjoyed these derby games since I have been here and it brings a bit extra to the games, but ultimately, to us, the importance is getting better and addressing the issues we had at Saracens.”