Burgess to make Bath debut

Sam Burgess will make his highly anticipated rugby union debut tomorrow after being named as a replacement for Bath‘s reception of Harlequins.
The Rugby League convert is set to wear the No.22 jersey and come on as a centre replacement while both Ollie Devoto and Peter Stringer are set to make their 50th appearances for the West Country outfit.
21-year-old Devoto starts at fly-half while scrum-half Stringer will hope to reach the milestone from the replacements’ bench.
Devoto’s inclusion means Gavin Henson, who kicked Bath to victory against London Irish last week from fly-half, moves to full-back.
Blindside Matt Garvey starts his second game this season, featuring in the back row alongside two big carriers in openside David Sisi and number eight Leroy Houston.
Fresh from their international campaigns with Argentina and Wales, Horacio Agulla and Paul James are included on the bench.
“Sam’s ready to play. His cheekbone is fine,” said head coach Mike Ford. “We’ve been getting him up to speed with the game for the last three or four weeks.
“He’s still got a lot of things to learn but getting him involved in matchdays is going to accelerate that learning.
“We’ll see how the game unfolds and if we need to put him on we will do. Depending on the state of the game, we’ll decide where to put him on.
“We’ve put him at 12 at training and he’s got a bit bored out there. He finds himself going towards the ruck, wanting to get involved.
“We’ve also seen him at six, seven and eight and he seems more comfortable there. Clearly there’s a lot more technical stuff he has to learn there so we might put him on at centre and let him look from afar.
“Maybe in his third or fourth game we’ll put him in the back row and see how he goes with that.”
Meanwhile, Harlequins have made three changes to the team that lost at home to Sale last Friday with Danny Care and Aseli Tikoirotuma returning from international duties.
Care starts at scrum-half pushing Karl Dickson back to the bench while Tikoirotuma takes over from Ollie Lindsay-Hague on the left wing.
Up front, former England U20s captain Jack Clifford will make his first Premiership start coming in at blindside flanker for Joe Trayfoot who drops to the bench.
Bath: Gavin Henson; Semesa Rokoduguni, Jonathan Joseph, Kyle Eastmond, Matt Banahan; Ollie Devoto, Chris Cook; Nick Auterac, Ross Batty, Henry Thomas; Stuart Hooper (Capt.), Dominic Day; Matt Garvey, David Sisi, Leroy Houston.
Replacements: Tom Dunn, Paul James, Kane Palma-Newport, Charlie Ewels, Carl Fearns, Peter Stringer, Sam Burgess, Horacio Agulla.
Harlequins: Ross Chisholm; Charlie Walker, Matt Hopper, Tom Casson, Aseli Tikoirotuma; Nick Evans, Danny Care; Mark Lambert, Dave Ward, Kyle Sinckler; Charlie Matthews, George Robson; Jack Clifford, Luke Wallace, Nick Easter (Capt.).
Replacements: Rob Buchanan, Darryl Marfo, Will Collier, Sam Twomey, Joe Trayfoot, Karl Dickson, Tim Swiel, Jordan Turner-Hall.