Francois Louw interview: Flanker quick to stir Bath in wake of Sam Burgess exit

It was no irony that Bath called on Francois Louw, their undisputedly world-class flanker, to rally the team in the messy aftermath of Sam Burgess – some-time flanker, some-time centre and full-time headline-maker – jetting off to Sydney to swap codes for the second time in 12 months.

Louw was the ideal pep-talker, as a close friend to Burgess, to the extent that they were discussing the Yorkshireman’s controversial switch back to rugby league at length as late as last Sunday, and also as a man who is utterly committed to the needs of the Bath squad coming before every other consideration.

“In any organisation the most important thing is the connection you have with the employees and with us that is the team, the players,” said Louw, newly returned from helping South Africa to third place in the World Cup.

“The guys aren’t out for themselves, they are in it together to achieve a common goal – in our case Premiership and Champions Cup glory. It’s been up and down but the focus is to move forward as a collective. It was important the guys understood that and I believe they do.”

Team morale has been a prominent subject in a period of potentially damaging gossip and rumour. Harlequins full-back Mike Brown made a vow to confront England team-mates at the next national squad session in January, angry at recent newspaper pieces quoting players anonymously on subjects such as Stuart Lancaster dropping Manu Tuilagi, and Tom Wood saying he would accept the captaincy. The implication from Brown was that he knew where the comments had come from.

Meeting Louw at Bath’s mansion-house training headquarters on Tuesday, the Springbok whose most recent action included going head to head with New Zealand’s Richie McCaw was impressively candid about the necessity of “a tight bond”, with Burgess out of sight but not yet out of mind.

“In the World Cup, we [South Africa] had a hell of a tough start going down to Japan,” said Louw, who had been named as Bath’s captain for Sunday’s European match in Toulon until it was called off after the Paris terror attacks on Friday night.

“We had two options [in the World Cup] – to crash out and be a massive failure or to regroup and treat every game as a knockout match. We’ve been on a hell of a ride and hit a few speed bumps in the last year, losing to Wales and Ireland and Argentina.

“But the boys really stuck together as a tight-knit group, and in the end we lost to the All Blacks by two points, and the vibe was electric.

“I came back here last week and the next thing I heard was Sam was keen to leave. It was a shock to me, I didn’t think he’d throw the towel in. He is a great guy, I got on really well with him. We were mates, and I would have a coffee with him in town, and we had a chat last Sunday, face to face, and discussed a lot of things, all the options. At the end of the day it was his decision to go back.”

Bath’s head coach Mike Ford was continuing to describe Burgess’s departure, one third of the way through a three-year contract, as a “thunderbolt”, and claimed his last conversation with the player before the World Cup revolved around Burgess’s fiancée’s brother co-owning a gym franchise and wanting to open a branch in Bath.

“Sam’s situation was a difficult task to start with,” said Louw. “I don’t think the games [of league and union] are really similar at all, and he realised that first hand. There isn’t a manual, and it’s not an easy game otherwise everyone would be doing it. I’m 30 years old so it’s taken me 30 years to get here.”

Where Louw finds himself now is at a club attempting to draw strength from its 150-year history, connecting the amateur past with the pros and cons of today. A new, giant club shield in the Great Hall at the impressive Farleigh House looms above a long wooden table, where players gather for team dinners. A bronze plate bearing the word “captain” is laid into it, next to the middle seat.

“We have old photos of Bath teams around, and trophies,” said Louw. “It’s nice to be part of something that holds heritage, that holds history, and is not just something that’s been thrown together.

“I was at a school in Cape Town that was 165 years sold – Diocesan College, the first school in South Africa to play rugby. There was a sense of being part of something that will outlive you. At Bath, you know you’ll leave a mark initially, you’re going to be in the team of 2015 and hopefully add a trophy to make it much more special.”

Ford is tipping Louw to help make that happen. “The one thing we’ve struggled with is getting the ball back,” pointed out the coach. “London Irish scored against us last weekend on the 32nd phase – Francois would have got the ball back four or five times in that sequence. He’s up there with [Australia’s great flankers] Hooper and Pocock.”