Bath v Northampton Saints | Preview

The 2024/25 Gallagher Premiership Rugby season will kick off with a repeat of last year’s dramatic final as Bath Rugby welcome champions Northampton Saints to The Rec.

Alex Mitchell’s try ended up being the difference between the teams at Twickenham as table-toppers Saints edged out Johann van Graan’s men to claim the title.

But this is a new season with some new faces and absent legends as each team plots its way back to the top.

Bath will look to their stellar half-back pairing of Ben Spencer, who captains the team, and Finn Russell, to pull the strings again this campaign, while Miles Reid makes his 100th appearance for the club in the back row.

On the bench, former Newcastle Falcons flanker Guy Pepper is waiting in the wings to make his debut.

Saints, meanwhile, have given a first competitive appearance to new signing Josh Kemeny, who arrives from Australia to much fanfare. Starting at blindside flanker, he will not be expected to fill the giant void left by Courtney Lawes on his own, but will certainly hope to hit the ground running.

Ollie Sleightholme, fresh from a first England cap in the summer, is named on the wing in an exciting backline, as he looks to follow up last season’s campaign when he was the top try-scorer in Gallagher Premiership Rugby.

Team News

Bath Rugby: 15 Tom de Glanville, 14 Joe Cokanasiga, 13 Ollie Lawrence, 12 Will Butt, 11 Will Muir, 10 Finn Russell, 9 Ben Spencer (c), 1 Beno Obano, Tom Dunn, 3 Will Stuart, 4 Quinn Roux, 5 Charlie Ewels, 6 Ted Hill, 7 Miles Reid, 8 Alfie Barbeary,

Replacements: 16 Niall Annett, 17 Francois van Wyk, 18 Archie Griffin, 19 Jacques du Plessis, 20 Guy Pepper, 21 Louis Schreuder, 22 Orlando Bailey, 23 Jaco Coetzee

Northampton Saints: 15 George Furbank (c), 14 James Ramm, 13 Fraser Dingwall, 12 Rory Hutchinson, 11 Ollie Sleightholme, 10 Fin Smith, 9 Tom James, 1 Emmanuel Iyogun, 2 Curtis Langdon, 3 Trevor Davison, 4 Angus Scott-Young, 5 Chunya Munga, 6 Josh Kemeny, 7 Tom Pearson, 8 Sam Graham

Replacements: 16 Robbie Smith, 17 Tom West, 18 Luke Green, 19 Callum Hunter-Hill, 20 Juarno Augustus, 21 Archie McParland, 22 Toby Thame, 23 Tommy Freeman

Oval Insights

Bath Rugby

• Bath Rugby scored at least two tries in all but one Premiership match last season (failed to score against Sale Sharks in Round 7).
• Bath kicked 12 50/22s last season; the rest of the league combined kicked just 24. They also retained a league-high 56 of their kicks and used more cross kicks than any other team (24).
• Finn Russell scored 155 points last season - second only to Fin Smith (Northampton Saints, 157 pts).

Northampton Saints

• Northampton Saints scored 80 tries last season - level best with Bristol Bears - including a league-high 15 from kick returns.
• Saints were the only team to cross the gainline over 1,000 times last season (1,070). Alex Mitchell (64) made the most gainline carries for the Saints and was 12th in the league overall.
• Ollie Sleightholme topped the league with 15 tries scored in just 919 minutes of play - a try every 61.3 minutes on average.