Bath Rugby go for Gold - Gary Gold

Gary Gold, Bath Rugby's incoming head coach, was hugely impressive when I spoke to him following his appointment earlier this week. He blends candour, experience and a steely edge, all leavened by a dollop or two of humour.
Some hard-nosed Springbok muscle is just the tonic for a Bath side which, too often, just wasn't able to physically assert itself on matches last season.
Club chairman Bruce Craig has also given me his explanation on why Gold was the man for him.
A tonne of reaction, analysis and comment surrounding Gold's appointment is in this week's Bath Chronicle. Sample some of it here.

Duncan Bell: I wish I'd spoken out about depression years ago

The Bath and England prop talks candidly about his struggle with mental illness as he prepares for his final match at The Rec


“My battery’s running down,” says Duncan Bell, glancing down at his phone. “There are 300 messages. I can’t believe the response.”

It’s about five hours since the Bath Rugby prop announced that he'd been silently battling depression for half of his 18-year career. Since that announcement, fellow players, fans and strangers have all been in touch, leaving Bell taken aback.

Mental health experts say that it is young men who are most likely to keep quiet about their depression and let the illness fester. Few speak up. But imagine how hard it must have been to open up for a 19st tighthead prop, whose job requires him to try and push eight blokes backwards for a living.

The news that Belly – the jovial fans’ favourite who always seems up for a jape – has been struggling with mental illness initially wrong-footed many.

Duncan Bell talks about his illness

To that extent, his announcement has done the worthy task of blowing out of the water the myth that to be depressed you have to appear glum, quiet and introspective.

“No-one really wants to talk about it in society generally, and especially in a bruising, man’s environment like rugby where we beat each other up on the pitch,” explains Bell. “You don’t talk about your feelings or what’s going on inside you.
“But the head is such an important part of the body. Without it you can’t play.

“It’s no different to pulling a hamstring. If you can’t get up in the morning and you can’t train because of your head, what’s the difference? Your head’s just as important as everything else and you need to look after it.”

Bell, 37, announced his retirement to his team-mates on Tuesday morning at the same time as revealing his struggle with depression.

Bath coach Brad Davis said: “I didn’t know about it at all. It came as a surprise to all of us at the club.

“Duncan’s suffered silently and credit to the man for coping so well and credit to the man for having the courage to share it with our squad and the greater rugby community. Him admitting it can only help other players in a similar position to speak out sooner.”

Bell, capped five times by England, is clearly relieved at having unburdened himself.

“I wish I’d done it years ago,” he says. “Why not tell fellow sportsmen there is this issue?

“If I can help anyone by doing this – by helping them to recognise if something is going on in their heads – then I will consider that an achievement.

“I’d have felt guilty if I’d got to the end of my career and not spoken about it and tried to help other players.”

Characteristically, despite the heavy topic, Bell lets a few wisecracks and anecdotes fly.

When we touch on Somerset cricketer Marcus Trescothick’s own revelations about his mental illness, Bell pipes up: “He’ll never remember this, but I played with Marcus at Avon under-19s. I batted at number three, but I never got to bat with him – he was always out!”

Bell touches down against Worcester Warriors



But away from the team environment, Bell is all too aware of how vulnerable he could be when he leaves Bath Rugby for good in May, going it alone as a mortgage adviser.

“Taking myself away from the group ethos and working for myself is going to be tough and very insular,” he says.

“When you come to a club environment where there are lots of players, you are not on your own and inside your own head. You’re stimulated by your mates and go to war with them every Saturday.

“When I’m involved with the club, I’m fine. It’s when I get away that the beast rears its ugly head occasionally.

“It’s not that I’m always unhappy in my own head, but sometimes it takes me to places I don’t want to go to.

“I’m concerned about how I’ll respond [after rugby]. I’m not on medication at the moment, but I’m aware of the warning signs.”

Bell leaves Bath with a European Challenge Cup winner’s medal and a nagging sense that the club has not quite hit the heights it should have done.

“It’s not the way I wanted to go out – I wanted to go out with silverware,” he admits.

“That is my biggest regret in the nine years I’ve been here. We’ve been so close so many times but the club’s never quite reached its potential.

“But anyone who starts playing top-flight rugby at 19 and retires at 37 with the amount of injuries I didn’t have can be pleased.”

As for his swansong on Saturday, Bell is unlikely to start put could have a seat on the bench – and he still has a touch of mischief about him.

“I don’t wish injury on anyone, but maybe someone could have an injury in the warm-up so I can get 80 minutes!”

Olly Barkley sends cross-dressing pitch invader packing

Former England centre Olly Barkley has joined Australia cricketer Andrew Symonds in the ranks of those sportsmen who have inflicted superb hits on unwanted pitch invaders.
After protesting with stewards at Edgeley Park on Friday that they were doing next to nothing to remove a transvestite intruder from the pitch, Barkley took stewarding responsibilities into his own hands - to great applause from the fans.
Despite his textbook tackle, Barkley's Bath Rugby still lost 16-9 to Sale Sharks in the Aviva Premiership match.
But who delivered the better hit, Barkley or Symonds? Take a look below and make your own mind up.

Don't try that again, Goldilocks

Should he have left that ball alone?

From the most exciting side in the Aviva Premiership to a wet rag of a side

Remember those halcyon days of spring-time electrification at The Rec? Those moments when, with the ground firming up, the daffodils sprouting and the days lengthening, Bath Rugby sent a shiver down the spine with displays of attacking audacity and top-drawer skills?
Days like this:

Where there was once 2,000 volts of electricity, there is now barely a current. And there is certainly no spark.
Bath's display against Northampton Saints on Saturday was awful and embarrassing. So much so that the club's own coaches described it as such, even issuing an apology to the 12,200 fans who had parted with their cash in order to witness such a car crash of a performance.
In both 2010 and 2011, Bath experienced truly grim starts to the season, but salvaged respect and league position with end-of-term displays that blended a heady cocktail of panache and skill.
Lamentably, it's been a different tale this campaign. No fightback, no resilience and all the flair of a wet rag.
What has been the main variable that has changed since 2010, when Bath last secured a play-off spot? The removal of their head coach, Steve Meehan. Following the arrival of Sir Ian McGeechan, Meehan was steadily marginalised during the course of the 2010-11 season, before heading back to Brisbane in June 2011 with a year still to run on his contract.
By his own admission since that parting, Meehan was not always the easiest of coaches to work with and his man-management skills were not up to scratch during his tenure at the club. But a coaching set up is primarily judged on its results, and on that criterion Meehan has the better of McGeechan hands down.
Bruce Craig's huge investment in Bath Rugby since he bought the club two years ago has yielded the square root of zilch. Bath are a flimsy proposition when they play at The Rec, and are currently an Amlin Cup-quality team. At best.
Big things were said at the start of the season about how The Rec would once more become a terrifying place for visiting teams. Yet Saracens, Harlequins, Sale, Gloucester and Northampton have all won there so far this campaign. That is not the record of a team on the right track, particularly given that the worst of those losses – against Northampton – was the most recent.
After Saturday's non-event, all bets will be off over what happens over the next few days at Farleigh House. That sumptuous rural manor was intended by Craig to be an inspirational club HQ from which plots of European domination could be devised. The Northampton debacle will have left Craig apoplectic. I think it unlikely that he will wait until the end of the season before acting.
Although unconfirmed, I understand that there are discussions taking place about the possibility of an immediate change to the Bath set up.
That would be the right thing for the board to do. The natives in the East Stand are justly pulling their hair out, while the players – on Saturday's performance – look bewildered.
Yet, thanks to other mid-table sides also losing, there is still a chance for Bath to sneak into next season's Heineken Cup. There is still more than pride to play for, although pride will surely be the principal motivation when Bath take to the field against Sale Sharks in south Manchester a week on Friday.
It has been a season in which Bath's ability to frustrate has been exceeded only by their capacity to botch up the basics. Bruce Craig, the city and the supporters deserve better.

One rule for the pros, another for the amateurs - why rugby has a fight on its hands

You don’t have to be Hercule Poirot to conclude that there appears to be one law for professional rugby and another for the amateur game when it comes to the punishments handed down for on-pitch violence.
The jailing of Keynsham number eight Jack Weston for six months is a case that brings into sharp relief what, to my mind, is a disgusting disparity between the professional and amateur games in this country.
Weston was put behind bars for throwing two punches at an opponent during a ‘hotly contested’ derby with Oldfield Old Boys.

The moment that cost Jack Weston, left, his freedom 

Back in May, a rather better known player by the name of Manu Tuilagi threw three punches at an opponent in another hotly contested derby, this time in the East Midlands, between Leicester and Northampton.
Weston is now sitting in a prison cell. Tuilagi? Well, less than a month after letting rip with his barrage of punches in front of the TV cameras, he was named the Premiership’s Young Player of the Season. He then went on to play for England in the World Cup.
The only slap on the wrist for Tuilagi was a nominal five-week ban – I say nominal because the regular league season was over.
He was also ordered to pay £500 in costs – pretty small change for an international star.
In evidence given against Weston – who pleaded guilty to GBH – his victim, Oldfield’s Ben Staunton, said the impact of the second punch he had received had been “ten out of ten”.
Those who have seen footage of Tuilagi’s final effort on Chris Ashton could quite reasonably give it the same rating.

Ashton needed treatment to his cut and bruised face; Staunton’s jaw was broken.
The RFU’s disciplinary officer, Judge Jeff Blackett, so often a voice of reason, made the following observation after the hearing into Tuilagi’s behaviour. It was an observation that raised eyebrows at the time but, in the context of Weston’s case, it raises as many questions as it does eyebrows.
“This sort of incident is very damaging to the image of the game and there is no place for this type of offending on the rugby pitch,” wrote Blackett.
“Had it occurred in the high street an offender would have been prosecuted in the criminal courts. Nevertheless we are confident that Manu Tuilagi will learn a valuable lesson from this.”
Had it occurred in the high street.... Is the inference from this that professional players enjoy immunity from prosecution for their on-field violence? Because if that is the case, then it is certainly not the case for the amateur game, as Weston’s case has shown.
Jack Weston’s unacceptable behaviour did not occur on the high street, it occurred on the rugby pitch – and he had the book thrown at him.
Manu Tuilagi’s unacceptable behaviour also occurred on the rugby pitch – in front of a massive TV audience – and the CPS sat on its hands.
Almost laughably in the context of Blackett’s remarks, the judge in Weston’s case, Judge Carol Hagen, jailed him because of the bad example he had set.
“It is important everyone realises the consequences of the behaviour you engaged in on that November afternoon,” she told him before sending him down.
If lessons about consequences are to be learned, then Judge Hagen’s logic would lead us to the conclusion that Tuilagi should have been jailed too. After all, he was playing in a match watched by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people on television. He is the one idolised by kids.
I don’t condone Jack Weston’s actions, not one bit – thuggery in all its guises does not belong in the game – but the inconsistency across the different levels of the game stinks.
Once he is out of prison, Weston will face a Somerset RFU disciplinary hearing. That, surely, will be an ideal occasion for everyone in rugby to think long and hard about this frankly appalling disparity.



The Mad Dog keeps smiling - Lewis Moody on retirement and his "ridiculous" career

Lewis Moody talks to me about his career, retirement and that creaking trophy cabinet

In his autobiography published after last year’s World Cup, Lewis Moody paid tribute to the cast of medics who had patched him up during his 16-year career.
And one day, the tale of his injuries, operations and comebacks will doubtless form a textbook for first-year medical students.

Ultimately, though, the years of attrition took their toll, resulting in his enforced retirement this week.

But, typically, Moody (pictured) was still smiling and looking to the future when I caught up with him on Tuesday. It was such a demeanour that saw him through many long injury lay-offs, injuries caused more often that not by the way he put himself about on the pitch.

Full-on, devil-may-care, kamikaze, scant regard for his own safety, body on the line... There are many ways in which Lewis Moody’s style of play have been described. Suffice it to say that the first person who nicknamed him Mad Dog wasn’t barking up the wrong tree.

Like a veteran of many a campaign in far-flung war zones, it takes more than one breath to get through Moody’s roll of honours.

The most capped England flanker, 71 caps for his country, seven Premiership titles, three for the British and Irish Lions, two Heineken Cup winner’s medals, one Anglo-Welsh Cup winner’s medal, two Six Nations Championship winner’s medals and one World Cup winners medal. It is some haul, and one that enables Moody to be at peace with his decision to hang up his boots.

“There’s no self-pity at all,” he says of the shoulder injury that has caused his retirement. “That’s not my style.

“I’ve had a phenomenal career - far greater than anyone could have imagined, certainly me. Some players don’t win a single trophy in their career, I think I’ve won 14 or something ridiculous.”

Many of Moody’s achievements were accomplished despite him being diagnosed with colitis in 2004-05. Over-exposure to anti-inflammatories, antibiotics and painkillers contributed to the onset of the condition, and a few seasons ago Moody even stopped taking protein shakes - ubiquitous in every professional club - to help his intestinal problems.

Moody made his international debut in 2001 and went on to feature in all seven of England’s games in their triumphant 2003 World Cup campaign.

He represented the Lions in 2005, helped England reach the 2007 World Cup and then captained his country into last year’s tournament.

Ultimately it proved a disappointing experience as England bowed out in the quarter-finals after a campaign dogged by controversy. Moody blamed himself for some of it.

He announced his retirement from the international game after the World Cup and was looking forward to channelling all his energies into Bath Rugby. Then, in his first Premiership game after returning from New Zealand, Moody took to the field at Sixways in what was to be his last game. A shoulder injury ended his game early, and it was to prove to be the final curtain on his career.

“It was gutting because when I retired from international rugby, all I wanted to do was focus my time on playing for Bath and playing out the two years left on my contract and then maybe having another year with the club,” explains Moody.

“I came back to training and was getting through everything great and then I suddenly couldn’t get through anything.

“You realise in your own head that something’s fundamentally not right and I realised that the injury I’d picked up against Worcester wasn’t something I was going to be able to come back from.

“It was an easy decision in that the body just wouldn’t recover.

“Of course I took professional advice. I wasn’t prepared to give up on my career until I’d explored every avenue.”

On Sunday, Moody decided he had played his final game.

“Over the weekend I had to bite the bullet and be realistic. I had to admit that I’d tried to come back but that unfortunately it wasn’t going to happen.”

And what of the future?

“There are many avenues for me to look at. Coaching is one of them, media stuff, team-building, after-dinner speaking and getting involved with the charities and sponsors that you can never give enough time to when you are playing due to training and games.

“There are so many options open to you it’s almost daunting thinking that you’ve got to go down one of them.

“Would I be a good coach? Who knows, I’d need to do some to find out. Would I be a good presenter? Who knows, I’d need to do some first. There are some interesting months ahead.”

And to cap it all...

Depending on your perspective (which in turn depends on how deep your pockets are), the Premiership’s salary cap is either a market-distorting piece of red tape that prevents English sides from competing on a level playing field in Europe, or a precious regulation that prevents the Chelseafication of rugby.




Whatever your thoughts on the cap’s existence, if it is there then it has to be enforced. Toothless regulations only muddy the waters.



For too long – to my mind, at least – the cap has been unsatisfactorily policed. It took too long to appoint a cap manager, and when he was appointed it was all a bit too low key.



Which is why it is good news that Premiership Rugby has now appointed big-hitting law firm Charles Russell to beef up its monitoring process.



The rumours of some clubs having previously embarked on sharp practices in order to skirt the cap are legion and it would be disingenuous of the authorities to pretend otherwise.



No doubt a great number of the ‘cap dodge’ tales are apocryphal – a birthday card stuffed full of cash was a wheeze that one player once jokingly mentioned to me – but for the sake of fairness, every side in the Premiership needs to know that all the others are complying with the wage ceiling.



Looking at their CV, few would doubt that Charles Russell are the ideal practice with which to ensure clubs remain whiter than white when it comes to the cap. Its clients include the Football Association, the British Horseracing Authority, the Scottish Football Association, the Rugby Football Union and the Welsh Rugby Union.



Contract scrutiny, spot checks and annual assessments should all be part and parcel of cap regulation. And rather like the judicial system at large, I suspect the rugby- supporting public would like cap assessment to not only be done, but be seen to be done.



Which is why an annually published cap report – with the necessary figures and sensitive information redacted – would be a welcome move.



With the addition next season of a regulation that will allow clubs to place one player outside of the cap, plus a modest increase in the basic cap, efficient monitoring will become more crucial. Charles Russell, get cracking.