Hatley Commends 'Massive' Rob Webber

Bath Rugby first team coach Neal Hatley has this week lauded the service of hooker Rob Webber, who will depart the club at the end of the season to join Sale Sharks, bringing to a close a four year tenure at the club.

Arriving at Bath Rugby as a coach focusing on the scrum, Hatley has spent plenty of his time in Somerset working alongside Webber to develop and fine tune Bath's approach in this area.

Speaking to Total Sport this week, Hatley praised the service of Webber during his time as coach, and echoed sentiments that all players in the modern game move on at some point or another. 

"Looking at how we manage the squad moving forward we're obviously unable to retain everybody. Webbs has been absolutely massive for us, the four years since he's been here. His arrival coincided with mine and he's been somebody to lean on, that leads the forwards and he's going to be missed," Hatley began.

"He's a big player and we wish him all the very best. Knowing Webbs as I do he's a proper competitor so I know we can bank on 100 per cent effort from him from now until the end of the season."

With Bath Rugby needing to turn their recent poor run of form around and channel all their focus on making a march to the play-offs, Hatley admitted the role of Webber is still vital from now until the end of the season.

"He still has a huge role. He started the last game and he'll start this weekend again," Hatley said.

"He's very important to us from a scrum point of view. He's really helped to bring on some of the younger players, like Tom Dunn. He's played a huge role with Nick Auterac and Max Lahiff and players like that, so he's had major input over the last eighteen months to two years," he added.

When put to him the notion of Webber's replacement, Hatley admitted the process was one that would be ongoing but would be made carefully.

"We've obviously got Tom Dunn, Ross Batty. We're probably going to need to look to get one more in but that's going to be ongoing for us," he added.

The process of recruitment is always a top priority in the Bath set up, as Hatley further explained.

"At certain times of the year, from January, February, March that (recruitment) probably becomes a bit more relevant. But I think the way that squads function now, you've seen sometimes where you get players in between clubs almost in season, which is not something that has traditionally happened in the past.

"But it's an unbelievably important cog to any Premiership side, the recruitment element, and it's very fluid for us," Hatley said.

The South African coach also admitted that gone are the days of 'one club' players, as the nature of the sport has changed.

"We know Jack from the under 20s but he's probably one of a few names that we have been linked with. Losing Webbs we need to make sure we bring in a very capable replacement so that's still ongoing at the moment,"