Arundell on long route to Bath's big day and hometown glory

TL;DR

Henry Arundell reflects on his childhood memories of Bath as he prepares for a significant match. He currently ranks fifth in Champions Cup try-scoring and has made 13 clean breaks this season.

Key points

Henry Arundell ranks fifth in Champions Cup try-scoring.
He has made the third-most clean breaks in the competition.
His favorite childhood memory involves a 2015 semi-final match.
Arundell's family were season ticket holders for Bath.

BathChampions Cup

Arundell is fifth in this season's Champions Cup try-scoring stats (with five) and has made the third-most clean breaks in the competition (with 13). [Getty Images]

Henry Arundell's favourite childhood memory of Bath is of another semi-final.

Back in 2015, as a 12-year-old, he and his season ticket-holding family were at the Recreation Ground cheering on a demolition of Leicester in the Premiership play-offs.

"That was an awesome day - I remember that team so well," Arundell told BBC Sport.

"There was George Ford at 10, which is a bit of a weird one now playing with him for England.

"But also Kyle Eastmond, Jonathan Joseph, Anthony Watson - another who I have played with at England, again weird.

"Tom Dunn and Charlie Ewels were part of that squad and are still here.

"I was just a child who loved rugby and dreamed of one day being in this scenario, so, yeah, it's pretty cool."

On Sunday, Arundell, now 23, and his modern-day Bath team have another semi-final to negotiate. It will be considerably tougher than that rout of Leicester.

Bordeaux-Begles, the star-studded, reigning champions, have home advantage at a sold-out 42,000-capacity Stade Atlantique in a scrap to make 23 May's Champions Cup final.

The match will be Bath's first Champions Cup semi-final in 20 years. Arundell too has taken a longer-than-expected route to this point.

As a rugby-mad schoolboy at Beechen Cliff in Bath, the club were the obvious career choice.

Arundell's team-mates Miles Reid (four years above), Tom de Glanville (three years above), Ethan Staddon (a year above) and Vilikesa 'Billy' Sela (two years below) were all tied to Bath's academy from the state school's rugby programme.

But, aged 14, Henry's talents, and his father's career, took him elsewhere. His father Ralph got a job with Harrow School in north-west London. Henry got a scholarship.

In London Irish's catchment area, he made his Exiles debut in November 2021, shortly after his 19th birthday. Several scorching scores followed, most notably a jaw-dropping 98m virtuoso run against Toulon, before he was named in England's squad to tour Australia.