Munster and Bath new 25 year old rivalry in Champions Cup opening round tie

MUNSTER and Bath meet in competitive fare for the first time since October 2000 this Saturday.

The sides, who met in a pre-season friendly in September, meet this Saturday, December 6 in the Investec Champions Cup Pool 2 opener.

The game has an 8pm start and will be televised live on Premier Sports.

Saturday evening will be Clayton McMillan’s first Champions Cup fixture as Munster head coach.

READ MORE: Munster Rugby name side to face Bath in Champions Cup

Munster and Bath last faced off competitively in a Champions Cup double-header in October 2000 (Munster won 31-9 at Thomond Park before Bath claimed an 18-5 victory at The Rec a week later).

Ahead of this weekend, both sides have won five of their six games in their respective leagues so far this season.

Bath won three trophies last year - The Premiership, European Challenge Cup and Premiership Rugby Cup.

Bath head of rugby Johann van Graan and defence coach and coaching co-ordinator JP Ferreira spent five years at Munster between 2017 and 2022, helping the province reach two Champions Cup semi-finals, three league semi-finals, and a PRO14 final.

READ MORE: Munster Rugby supporters turn out in force for URC clash against DHL Stormers

Munster travel to The Recreation Ground, following a disappointing home defeat to the Stormers in the URC last Saturday.

The December 6 fixture is the first game of a Champions Cup double-header with Munster hosting Gloucester at Cork's Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Saturday, December 13, with over 33,500 tickets sold.

On the injury front, Jack O’Donoghue failed a HIA on Saturday night and faces return-to-play protocols.
In positive player news, Michael Ala’alatoa has joined his new team-mates at the High Performacen Centre in UL after signing from Clermont Auvergne until the end of the season.
Last weekend, Munster saw their unbeaten start to the URC season abruptly ended by the South African side 27-21 in front of an official attendance of 14,421 at Thomond Park.
It looked as though Munster were going to capitalise on home advantage when they led the top-of-the-table clash 21-6 at half-time after running in three tries. But the Stormers racked up 21 unanswered points after the break to secure a famous win.
Munster Rugby captain Tadhg Beirne admitted the side would have to learn lessons quickly from Saturday night's game in which the Stormers were aided by a powerful scrum which had the home side under a lot of pressure. Bath are likely to provide a similar challenge to that posed by the Stormers.
Beirne said: “We've no choice but to learn the lessons quickly. You know, we know how tough Europe is. We have to take a massive step forward to compete next week because we know that wasn't good enough today particularly that second half.
“It was nowhere near good enough, so we'll have a bit of an uphill battle to sort ourselves out before next week, but as you said, it's happened now so now we have to learn from it quickly and write those wrongs.”
Munster's line-out functioned well against the Stormers, but the scrum was an issue through the game as the South African side gained the upperhand there.
Head coach Clayton McMillan said: “There's lots to work on across the board. I guess the positive thing is that our piece malfunctioned at times and we were ill disciplined, yet we still gave ourselves a chance to win the game and you know, for all the lack of possession, territory and discipline, you know, wasn't that far off.
“We know what we're capable of when we play somewhere near our best, we just need to do it more often for longer. The games that we have ahead of us aren't going to give us the luxury of sort of sorta bumbling our way through and hoping that we come out on the right side of the score board.
“We'll be honest in our review as we always are and we'll need to find some quick improvements because clearly teams would have seen opportunities and chinks in the armour and they'll come hard with us in those areas.