Cain column: Burgess effect still rumbling through Bath

By Nick Cain
THE  saying, “be careful what you wish for”  is tailor-made for the wreckage left at the Rec after Bath‘s £500,000 p.a. dalliance with Sam Burgess. The shockwaves from the signing of the NRL star – and his subsequent return to the South Sydney Rabbitohs after seeing out just one season of a three-year deal – are still reverberating.
Last week, Bruce Craig, the Bath owner who pursued the Burgess deal, felt it necessary to refute strong rumours that he was about to sell his controlling interest in the club to the billionaire business tycoon, Sir James Dyson.
Although Dyson is an ardent Bath fan, whose company is a club sponsor, Craig told The Rugby Paper that he was “not selling Bath” and had no interest in doing so. However, it is not difficult to see why rumours of a sale gathered momentum when you consider the carnage that has surrounded the Burgess folly.
It is crystal clear that there was widespread disenchantment among the Bath coaching team and playing squad at the decision by Burgess to pack his bags immediately after England’s failed 2015 World Cup campaign.
Burgess left a strong impression within the Bath and England camps that he had seen the club mainly as a vehicle to secure a place in the World Cup squad. There are also those who insist that a contingency for his return to Aussie Rugby League was in place before the tournament started.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Burgess move, neither Craig nor anyone else at Bath can refute that the fall-out from it has been deeply damaging.
Since losing the 2015 Premiership final to Saracens barely more than a year ago, Bath have seen three coaches and 17 senior players leave the Rec. That volume of turn-over in a squad usually indicates a club in disarray.
After Bath finished ninth in the league table last season, failing to qualify for the European Cup, head coach Mike Ford was sacked by Craig. Ford’s departure in May was followed not long afterwards by that of forwards coach Neal Hatley, who announced that he had accepted an approach from Eddie Jones to become England’s scrum coach.
Earlier in the season there had been dismay when Danny Grewcock left his job as head of the Bath Academy, with the former Bath, England and Lions lock taking up a new post as director of sport at Oundle School.
The playing exodus has been nothing short of startling, with England centre Kyle Eastmond the latest to head for the exit (see Jeremy Guscott on Page 7 ). The word is that Eastmond’s contract was allowed to expire after the player was informed by email that the club did not want to pay him the salary he was offered last December.
Eastmond is expected to join Sale Sharks, where he will link with recent Bath team-mates Peter Stringer and Rob Webber. Evergreen former Ireland scrum-half Stringer was released a year ago, and, at the age of 38, was the Sale supporters’ player of the year last season, and rewarded with another year’s contract. England hooker Webber has followed in his footsteps to the AJ Bell stadium this summer.
Another international to head for the door a year ago was Paul James, with the Welsh loosehead leaving for the Ospreys, while this summer his countryman, lock Dominic Day, has left to play in Japan.
The departure seen as one of the most harmful during Craig’s ownership was that of Carl Fearns, with the bruising back-row forward deciding to cross the Channel to join Lyon after having to play second fiddle to Burgess in the pecking order at blindside. The high regard in which Fearns was held by Bath fans does not seem to have been misplaced, because in his first season with Lyon they secured promotion to the Top 14 after cleaning up in France’s ProD2.
A further body blow came last season when newly-capped England centre Ollie Devoto decided to pack his bags and join Exeter Chiefs, following the same path as wing Olly Woodburn, who, since leaving the Rec a year ago as a squad player, has become a regular starter in Rob Baxter’s side.
Another player to have prospered elsewhere is scrum-half Micky Young, whose promising form since rejoining Newcastle Falcons a year ago was rewarded with an England Saxons recall.
Among the long-serving crowd favourites heading for new pastures is Horacio Agulla, with the Argentine international wing joining Castres, while Aussie back-rower Leroy Houston has returned to the Queensland Reds.
With full-back Luke Arscott opting to remain with Bristol, promising Japan No.8 Amanaki Mafi cutting short his stint with Bath after a row with medical staff, and dynamic flanker Alafoti Fa’osiliva sacked after admitting assault on a student, the disintegration of the squad that challenged for the Premiership title is more or less complete.
Bath still have plenty of star quality to call on, with the likes of George Ford, Jonathan Joseph, Anthony Watson, Dave Attwood, Henry Thomas, David Wilson and Springbok flanker Francois Louw on their books. However, what happens when those players are away on international duty is a key component in the success of any Premiership side, and it is then that you rely on team spirit and the resilience of your club stalwarts to keep the flag flying.
At present there do not seem to be many of those stalwarts left at the Rec – and most of the signs point towards the arrival of Burgess, and his equally sudden departure, coinciding with the dismantling of a successful squad.