FIRST-TEAM coach Darren Edwards says Bath will not be wanting for motivation when they go toe-to-toe with local rivals Gloucester this evening.

Although the Anglo-Welsh Cup may be down on Bath’s list of priorities this term, when West County bragging rights are up for grabs, the stakes are always at their highest.

Bath have been beaten in both of their matches in the competition so far and sit bottom of Pool One but victory over the Cherry and Whites tonight would at least keep them in with a chance of making the knockout stages heading into the final round of group games next weekend.

With international players currently away on camps ahead of the Six Nations, a youthful Bath line-up is likely to take to the field against Gloucester at The Rec but the objective remains the same.

“It’s a local derby and it gives us a chance to freshen things up a bit,” said Edwards.

“It’s a different group we will be working with and it’s a chance for them to go out and play and for some of them, it might be their first experience of this derby atmosphere.

“It’s important that all of the players in our squad are match-ready. We had to call up someone like Zach Mercer this season because of injuries and he’s come in and shone.

“We’ve got good young players here and we know they can be relied upon if they are needed.

“There are going to be two sets of passionate supporters and I am sure it’s going to be a great atmosphere, so hopefully we can produce a game to match that.”

Bath will be eager to produce a similar performance to the one that was served up at The Rec last weekend as they swept aside French side Pau 69-10 to book a home quarter-final in the European Challenge Cup, England wing Anthony Watson scoring a brace of tries.

The result follows a 57-22 success for Todd Blackadder’s side at Bristol in their previous outing as Bath claimed 10 points from the final 10 available to top Pool Four and set up a home clash with Brive in the last-eight in late March.

“The performance rates pretty highly in terms of the week before when we played very well too. That is always the challenge, to back-up one performance in the next,” said Edwards.

“It was always the aim to try to get ourselves a home quarter-final so going into those two games, we not only wanted to win, we wanted to score a lot of points. For the players to deliver on that front is very good.

“The quarter-final is a game we look forward to as we want to do well in that competition but we will it put on the back-burner now because in the next few weeks, we have an important batch of fixtures and we want to look to strengthen our position in those top four spots in the Premiership if we can.”

l News from tonight’s derby at wiltshiretimes.co.uk/sport