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Baker glad to have underdog tag

Baker glad to have underdog tag

Ospreys number eight Dan Baker is hoping to prove the Welsh region’s doubters wrong when the European Rugby Champions Cup gets under way next weekend.

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Baker and his colleagues have been handed a challenging Pool 5 draw, where they will face Aviva Premiership champions Northampton, French giants Racing Metro and Italian side Treviso.

Few are giving the Welsh side, three-time quarter-finalists in Europe, any chance to getting out of the pool stage, despite their unbeaten start to the Guiness Pro12 season. But Wales back-rower Baker is happy for people to take the Ospreys lightly.

“I admit, when I saw the draw your jaw does drop a little bit,” he said.
“But all we can do is get on with it. There is no easy group in that competition, it is not as though there is another group you look at and think you would rather have been in there.

“We have to get on with it, people will look at us up against Northampton, the English champions, and a very strong Racing Metro side and they will write us off. They can think we are underdogs and we will be happy with that. It means we have nothing to be afraid of and nothing to lose.”

Baker will hope to use the opening double-header, which sees the Ospreys host Treviso and travel to Franklin’s Gardens to meet the Saints, to enhance his Wales credentials.

The 22-year-old impressed on the summer tour of South Africa, with his powerful carrying and deft offloading game, and is hungry for more Test experience.

He said: “It is an honour to play alongside some of those players in the Wales squad. There are Grand Slam winners and British & Irish Lions in there and they are all great with the younger players, they really try and bring you along and they are there for you. You see the standards they set and you have to try and get to it.”

 

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