Bath Bok relishing return
Springbok flank Francois Louw is eagerly anticipating his return to action against Agen in France on Thursday.
Louw, who received a surprise recall to the South African squad for the Australasian leg of the Rugby Championship, starred in the Springboks' 31-8 revenge win over the Wallabies in Pretoria last month and ended the tournament as first-choice openside flank.
He returned from international duty last week but was an unused replacement in Bath’s 40-17 away win over Bucuresti at the weekend.
Since Louw's last outing for Bath, at the start of September, the club have won just two of their five games to put them down in seventh place on the table.
A hungry Louw assured that the club are not overlooking the Challenge Cup and said the competition remains a top priority for the team this season as they bid to return to Europe's top table.
"We are going for this competition at pretty much 100 per cent," he said.
"It's an opportunity for us to get back into Europe but more than that we have spoken as a club this year about taking every single game we play seriously, of representing Bath to the best of our abilities whether that's in Europe, the Premiership or the A-League.
"I did ten weeks of pre-season with the guys and things have only changed a little bit since then so it hasn't taken very long for me to readjust.
"I need some game time to be really back in the flow but that will come.
"I of course kept up with all of Bath's results while I was away and our form has been a bit disappointing, we didn't win some of the games we had targeted.
"It's a new coaching set-up and it was always going to take time but there remains quite a bit of work for us to do.
"We are still not quite where we want to be as a team, there remains a lot of work still to be done and that is borne out by our results."
A confirmed starter in Thursday’s away Challenge Cup assignment, the 27-year-old insists he is itching to get back into the thick of things.
"Now we're all looking forward to this weekend and from a personal point of view to be starting will be great," he said.
"I've settled back in quite nicely, I went with the boys to Bucharest last week and although I did not get on the pitch it felt good to be back involved and we played really well.
"Agen are a pretty solid side who have won a few games at the start of the Top 14 season already so we know it will be a tough place to go to.
"It will be a big challenge, but one that we are looking forward to. They've got some big strong ball carriers so we need to be up for the fight."
