Bath centre Cameron Redpath admitted the squad were thankful for a few weeks off at the end of last season, speaking on The Rugby Paper Podcast.
Due to injury, Redpath himself did not feature prominently in Bath’s disappointing season – where they finished last out of the 13 teams in the Gallagher Premiership – but he did feel a break was needed to get the squad out of the rut they found themselves in.
“I missed pretty much all of last season so I was ready to go for this year, but a lot of boys needed time off. You understand the physical drain of playing rugby, but even doing your hobby for a living has a mental drain.
“Losing a lot of games last year was tough to take, and even for me not playing it was tough to be in an environment like that.
“It’s hard to get out of a run like that, and I think the lads needed a couple of weeks at the end of the season away from it all.”
There was an eagerness to get going amongst Bath’s players with the appointment of Johann van Graan as head coach and a raft of other new staff coming in, but Redpath still felt it was important to reset the mood so players would not get downbeat if the season did not get off to a winning start.
“We were very excited about what was to come, because we’d heard brilliant things about Johann [van Graan] and everyone else coming in, and you want to go again straight away to right those wrongs from last year.
“But you need that time off to get away from that stressful spiral of thinking ‘oh no we’re in this position again’ when things go wrong.”
Redpath also paid tribute to Bath’s supporters, and the passion that they kept for the club despite the dire 2021/22 campaign.
Bath sold-out their season tickets for the new season by early July, and Redpath was hopeful for even more growth if the club were able to return to competing for the play-offs and beyond.
“I can guarantee you, if the majority of other Premiership clubs went on a run like we did last year, they wouldn’t have continued to have sellouts most weeks and we did.
“It’s an amazing city and rugby club and if we can build on that there’s no reason why we can’t increase that support.
“If we were winning everything, imagine what it could be like at the Rec and in the city of Bath?
“I think everyone knows that and wants that, it’s just about pressing that restart button and re-building step-by-step and not expecting it to just happen on its own.
“To come and watch your team not performing is annoying and we’ll do everything we can to be better than we were last year, and I’ve no doubt that we will do that.”
For exclusive stories and all the detailed rugby news you need, subscribe to The Rugby Paper website, digital edition, or newspaper from as little as 14p a day.
Pingback: เพิ่มยอดวิว