Flatman admits to severe pressure
Bath prop David Flatman has admitted that there is severe pressure around the club now the Premiership season is under way.
Bath has enjoyed the good fortune to have wealthy owner Bruce Craig come in and put a great deal of funding and investment into the club. This allows the club to improve facilities and sign a high number of quality players.
However, it also means that there is a great deal of pressure because the owner will want a return for the money he has given the club to spend. The club has signed some very good players during the summer and started the season perfectly with a 32-16 win over Leeds.
Pressure is one of the main demons in any sport because it has the ability to make the best side in the world make bad errors during an important game. However, Bath has enough quality to cope with this.
The demons of pressure
When there is a lot of pressure before a rugby game, it can put a number of experienced and talented players on edge. This causes nerves to creep into a team and this in turn can lead to mistakes early on in a match.
These nerves will sometimes prompt a player to stretch a little further or push a little harder than needed early on in a match. The reason this is dangerous is because this can often cause a player to tear a muscle or make a mistake early in a game.
This will either force a player out of the side because they have to go and recover from injury or it will mean that a side is chasing a game before it has really started. These are negative issues that can build up quickly over a season and make the difference by the end.
Flatman said: "We're under very positive and ambitious new ownership, have great new training facilities and we have to live up to that. But I think the real pressure comes from starting another season as a Bath player off the back of a season where we haven't won anything. We know the pressure of the brand and the people that have gone before us."
Enough quality
Bath is one of the top rugby clubs in England and the side has been widely tipped to win the Premiership this season. The club has brought in quality players over the course of the summer who are no strangers to pressure.
The likes of Lewis Moody and Sam Vesty from Leicester will come into the dressing room and ease all of those pre-match nerves that threaten to cost the side a match or a title. The quality the club has should ensure that Bath has a very good season that isn't determined by pressure.
Flatman added: "We were undone upfront by Leicester last season [in the Premiership semi-final]. It wasn't the backs that lost us that game it was us really. We've got some great top players but so have 11 other teams so we've just got to deliver."
Betting advice
Bath showed no signs that pressure would prevail during the first match of the season against Leeds. Bath won the match 32-16 and it was clear that the side does have one or two areas to work on. This means Bath are able to win a game while not playing well. This suggests that there are no fears in the dressing room that pressure will get the better of certain players.
Back Bath to win either the Premiership title or using a match by match context.
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