How Bath have become the team to beat in Premiership play-offs

Bath’s second-half demolition of Leicester three weeks ago summed up the challenge facing opposition teams this season when confronting the Premiership table-toppers.

Max Ojomoh, Guy Pepper, Ross Molony, Will Stuart and Francois van Wyk were among the players brought on from the bench to see out the match – Ojomoh, who played just 34 minutes, made such an impact he was named player of the match.

The strength in depth developed under Johann van Graan has been a major factor in Bath finishing 11 points clear at the top and they head into this weekend’s semi-finals as favourites to claim what would be their first title since 1996.

If they overcome Bristol on Friday and then the winners of the Leicester-Sale semi at Twickenham on 14 June, the West Country side would also seal a historic treble, having already clinched the Premiership Rugby Cup and European Challenge Cup.

Leicester Tigers, in 2001, are the only other English club to win a ‘treble’ in the modern era, although theirs consisted of the Premiership, the elite European (formerly Heineken) Cup and the Zurich Championship, a short-lived end-of-season knockout competition just for the top eight teams in the league.

“For the last 35 rounds we’ve been in the top four, over two seasons, so we’ve become better and we’ve become comfortable with being favourites,” head of rugby Van Graan said last month of the expectation around his squad.

“We keep it within our circle, stick to our process – which we’ve become very good at – and just enjoy it.”