Bristol Bears host Bath Rugby the Principality Stadium on Saturday in Round 16 of the 2024/25 Gallagher PremiershipJames Dun of Bristol Bears looks on. (Photo by Patrick Khachfe/Getty Images)

Bristol Bears is in the blood for James Dun. The 25-year-old second row is the son of Bristol Rugby royalty with his father Andy having captained the club, so there are few players currently in the changing rooms who understand what the derby with Bath means to the city.

Looking ahead to another seismic clash this weekend, where first will take on fourth in the table, Dun said: “People just care more about this game, they do, it’s like, they’re always our sell out games.

READ MORE: Bristol Bears vs Bath Rugby LIVE: Play-by-play updates from the Principality Stadium

“I think people in Bristol have a bit of a chip on their shoulder when it comes to Bath, it’s like they’re the noisy neighbours. It’s just a mindset of like them looking down on us as well, in terms of as a club, as a city.

“Being a Bristol boy, that’s always been instilled in me, Bath is like the old enemy.

“I guess for them, because we had so many years down the Championship, they kind of developed a derby with Gloucester, but for us this game has always been like the pinnacle.

“I was at Bristol Grammar School and played for Old Bristolians before joining the Bears, that was always my club. Now this season I’ve done a bit of coaching with them as well, which is pretty nice. Even playing at Old Bristolians as a kid, we’d play games against Bath clubs and and even then it would be like, this is Bath, come on boys. It’s just an extra 5 percent and an emotional spike.

“It’s just always been a thing for me growing up. My dad used to play for Bristol and he’d tell me stories of the John Player Cup from the 80s. He said one of his best ever games was when Bristol won 12-11 in the rain. It’s just been instilled in me that playing Bath is always the biggest game and always where his stories came from. The only rugby stories that got told to me really were Bristol v Bath stories.

On Saturday, for the first time in history, the derby game with Bath will be played at Cardiff’s colosseum of rugby the Principality Stadium in front of an expected crowd of more than 50,000 fans.

For Dun, who has fully recovered from getting knocked out against Northampton Saints in the last round and passed all his return to play protocols after a head knock, the game represents one of the biggest rugby occasions of his life having never played at Twickenham or even in the club’s showpiece game against Saracens at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2022.

He said: “I’ve been to the Principality for a couple of England-Wales games back in the day. Especially with the roof on, that atmosphere is probably unrivalled really. I think there’s probably a better atmosphere than Twickenham, if I’m being honest. I’m excited. It’s going to be nervy, but being able to play Bath where you’re sort of so emotionally up for it anyway, and then you add in the fact that there’s 50,000 people, it will be something special.

It is easy to forget how rapid Dun’s rise to being a regular starter for the Bears has been, with October’s 36-26 win over Bath at the Recreation Ground his first start in a derby fixture.

Dun, with a smile on his face, reflected: “Obviously winning away is huge and that was my first derby in the Prem that I played. So winning away at the Rec, that was like a real emotional one. Yeah, it’s just some great memories.”

In many ways this rivalry reignited back in 2018 when the rebranded Bears kicked off the 2018/19 Premiership season with a 17-10 win at Ashton Gate thanks to a late try from Alapati Leiua. Dun was packed in amongst the 26,000 joyous fans that night, having helped prepare the team in the week.

Dun reflected: “I was in the wider squad but still a fan basically. I still remember Alapati’s try, the juggle, the catch, sends Ashton Gate into raptors, that one. That was kind of amazing.”

While just winning the derby might have been good enough for the Bears in years gone by, it isn’t in 2024/25 and there is plenty on the line as well as bragging rights this weekend with Bristol fighting to stay in the play-off picture having dropped down to fourth in the standings after three straight defeats.

Dun said: “If we win three games now, we’re in a semi-final. That’s kind of been our mindset. “We’re not happy with how we’ve been performing and the fans are clearly not buzzing with how we’ve been performing as well, but it’s been a really good training week and a really good refocus. Everything that has come before is out the window this week, this is the derby, this is Bath. Just get it done, basically.”

Bath undoubtedly pose one of the biggest challenges in rugby, with the club having already wrapped up top spot in the Gallagher Premiership with three rounds to spare.

In recent weeks, Newcastle director of rugby Steve Diamond has coined the well-financed Bruce Craig-backed side as the ‘Galacticos’ of the league, with international star quality everywhere you look.

Focussing on the threat the opposition pose, Dun said: “We had it with Leinster in the Champions Cup earlier this year, it’s like Leinster style isn’t it? They bring on players who better their team. They’re a bit of a Swiss army knife of a team, they’ve got the Guy Pepper route where you know every breakdown is going to be gone after, they’ve got the Alfie Barbeary route where you’re probably going to have to try and double hit him and stuff like that. So they’ve kind of got a bit of everything in there. It’s a great challenge and we have to be on it the whole time.”

To have any chance of victory the Bears will have to match the physicality and intensity they showed at the Recreation Ground back in the Autumn with Dun and his team mates keen to prove they are more of a complete article than the flamboyant all-out attackers they have been labelled.

He said: “We’ve kind of had the rep being sort of globetrotters, run from everywhere but like our forward packs actually performed really well in terms of like stats. Our goal is to challenge perceptions a little bit around Bristol just being like a one-trick pony we’re going to run. We know if you’re going to win a game in the Premiership, especially with their big ball carriers you know they’re relentless with it, but if we can get parity in that, or better it like we did in the away game, then the sort of Globetrotter stuff in quote marks is like a lot easier to play.”