HEINEKEN CUP Pool Four
Venue: Ravenhill Date: Saturday, 10 December 2010 Kick-off: 1330 GMT
Coverage: Live commentary on BBC Radio Bristol

Centre Barkley will make his 200th appearance in Bath colours against Ulster

By Charlie Henderson

Olly Barkley is confident the imminent Heineken Cup double-header with Ulster will kick start Bath's season after only two wins in their last nine games.

"We've got to get out of the blocks straight away," Barkley told BBC Sport.

"We are playing the team that we need to beat to compete with Biarritz to go through. It is like a semi-final.

"We're not playing as well as we can at the moment, but the Heineken Cup's a different competition and we'll go to Belfast brimming with confidence."

Confidence is a vital commodity in sport, but it was in short supply at the Rec after Bath's opening European pool defeat by Biarritz back in October.

"That's Europe done for then," harrumphed one glum season-ticket holder as he left the main stand after the 12-11 loss. His words hung in the air pessimistically and prematurely, roundly ignored by all.

HEINEKEN CUP POOL FOUR 1 Biarritz - P2 W2 L0 - Pts 9 2 Bath - P2 W1 L1 - Pts 6 3 Ulster - P2 W1 L1 - Pts 5 4 Aironi - P2 W0 L2 - Pts 0

After all, last season 19 points proved good enough to progress to the knock-out stages and both pools with an Italian side had two qualifiers.

After a bonus-point 22-6 win at Aironi, Bath remain on target, but a win on the road at Ulster is now vital if they are to stay on track.

"We shot ourselves in the foot against Biarritz and didn't play well against Aironi, but did what we had to do," added Barkley.

"Ulster are a good side and two games consecutively presents an advantage to both sides because you get to know your opposition pretty well and you get to potentially work them out.

"And a good couple of games in the Heineken Cup can push you on in the Premiership.

"Defensively it will be a huge task for us and playing week after week can be an advantage, but if they get some momentum up in the first game it makes life very hard.

"That first game is really important. The advantage we have is that we're going away and the pressure's on them. But Ravenhill's not easy and if we lose, we make life incredibly hard for ourselves.

"We've made life hard for ourselves already and we'd then make it a very uphill task."

Particularly when you do not have much in the way of good results to fall back on.

The flipside to the positive qualification statistics is Bath's fitful form in recent months, which runs counter to Barkley's assertion that the squad will travel "brimming with confidence".

Bath have not won in the Premiership since the end of September and in nine matches since, they have tasted success only against Cardiff Blues in the LV= Cup and Aironi in Europe.

606: DEBATE Bath's tactics are dreadful - I could come up with better ones. They need to get their act together quickly Clone Richard Hill

Barkley bemoans a lack of width as key to their problems, but it is baffling when you consider the run Bath enjoyed at the end of last season, when they won 10 out of 11 matches to surge into the Premiership play-off semi-finals.

That run coincided with Barkley's return to Bath colours after injury and a short one-season stint up the road at Gloucester, where he looked as comfortable as a man in a corrugated iron suit.

You do not need Trinny and Susannah to tell you Barkley looks better in blue than red, but what about white?

His form had pundits purring and it looked inevitable that he would add to his 23 caps on England's summer tour down under.

Former Bath centre Jeremy Guscott reflected: "Olly was the outstanding centre three-quarter playing in the Premiership. He seemed to kick every goal, he made breaks at will. He was the form inside centre without doubt and deserved to play on the summer tour."

But he did not and instead watched both Tests against Australia from the sidelines with club team-mate Shontayne Hape wearing the number 12 shirt.

Hape retained his place for the recent autumn internationals, a series of games Barkley watched from further afield, having been left out of England's Elite Player Squad.

It is a situation Guscott can empathise with having seen then-Bath team-mate Phil de Glanville paired with Will Carling at centre after the 1995 World Cup.

"Olly just has to deal with it and it doesn't seem he dealt with it in a very good way if we take on board what Martin Johnson said," added Guscott.

"In his case, if he felt things weren't as he would like in that England squad, there are ways and means of going about making that known and my view is that if you play so well you can't be ignored, you can't be ignored."

BARKLEY: FROM ONE TO 200 Debut: 8 September 2001 (Prem) Northampton 26-7 Bath Bath team: Thirlby; Voyce, Maggs, Cox, Danielli; Barkley, Cooper; Emms, Regan, Mallett, Borthwick, Grewcock, El Abd, Beattie, Thomas 199 games (15 as replacement) 30 tries; 250 cons; 4 drop-goals, 406 pens, 1,880 points It's not only the 200, it's who you're doing it for. It's such a historic club and some amazing players have gone before so to be part of that and leave a little bit of a legacy is huge Next target: Jon Callard's Bath points record of 2,087. 208 to go.

That is exactly what Barkley, who will make his 200th Bath appearance at Ulster, intends to do.

"I look at things fairly philosophically and think if they want to play someone like Shontayne at 12, then he offers an awful lot at 12. I'm not going to take that away from him," he said.

"If that's what they want in their player at 12 then that's what they want and that's very different to what I can provide.

"That's not for me to bitch about or to moan about. It's horses for courses and that's their choice.

"From my point of view I need to make sure I keep playing well and I keep my spot at Bath because you can't prove international selectors wrong unless you're playing for your club, and if you're not playing for your club you're out of the shop window.

"I've always tended to focus quite heavily on the now, working hard, and I've always thought if you can work very hard in the short term the good things will happen.

"Wherever you are and no matter what disappointment you still have, it's a massive task to nail your club shirt down."

With Hape having worn 12 and Matt Banahan 13 for England against Samoa, there could be stiff competition in the Bath midfield as they look to turn their season around.

But Barkley says that can only be a good thing and the club will be the one to benefit now a month of chopping and changing the backline during the internationals is behind them and Ulster lie in wait.

"We'll hopefully get [South Africa fly-half] Butch James back in one of those two games, all our international boys are back and that's a huge boost for big games," he added.

"And there's a big challenge for me because Shontayne played very well for England, as did Banners at 13. That's good for my game and it's good for their game that we're all challenging for the spots.

"At the moment we're not getting comfortably outplayed, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot by giving away penalties and giving stupid offloads.

"You need to keep the ball for longer, build pressure and build into your game and we're not allowing ourselves to do that.

"But if you increase the quality of the players in the side you cut out errors, it's simple. Good players are good players for a reason and our form will click very soon. Sooner than Christmas."

That means Ulster, and for Bath, their supporters and Mr Glum of the main stand, they will hope that means Ravenhill on Saturday.

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