Orlando Bailey: I can laugh about it now, but I had to make this move to play more rugby

All the way back in 2019 when Todd Blackadder was still in charge at Bath, there was a buzz around Farleigh House about a fly-half prospect in the club’s academy. A future England age-grade international who had the potential to become Bath’s No 10 for the next decade, with attacking vision and good defence, born and raised in the city with a name not easily forgotten: Orlando Bailey.

A year later, with Blackadder gone, Bath announced that Freddie Burns was off to Japan, leaving Rhys Priestland, then in his early 30s, as the club’s only recognised senior fly-half. Although they knew they had a gem tucked away, educated locally at Beechen Cliff School, part of their academy since he was 14 years old.

Bath during this spell were, to be frank about it, a bad team. The grand scale of their resources off the field was not matched by a competitive side on it. Their pack faded in games and their defence was soft. And a teenage Bailey was thrown in to try and make it work.

“We have always known he's been really talented, but this year he has had to step up in pretty difficult circumstances,” his academy coach, Craig Lilley, told me midway through the 2021-22 season, the darkest point of Bath’s nadir when they finished bottom of the Prem in 13th. “He not only performs as a player, but [it's] also the influence he has on the players around him and the way he conducts himself, at times leading senior international players. To see him develop the way he has this year has been amazing.”

That was also the season where Bailey was called up by England, training with the senior squad at Pennyhill Park, travelling as a reserve to away matches against Ireland. His form and ability outweighed Bath’s struggles, and had it not been for an ill-timed hamstring injury, who knows if a debut cap would have followed.

Last summer, Bailey faced a difficult decision. Bath were champions of England and he had a year to run on his contract, but there was no longer a route into the first team, largely because of the immense impact made by Finn Russell in the No 10 shirt, a star signing who had been worth every penny.

When a hamstring injury kept him out for most of the second half of last season, Ciaran Donoghue emerged and took Bailey’s place in the matchday squad. Then Bath signed Santi Carreras, the Argentina international capable of covering fly-half and full-back. Bailey’s window was closing. He learned an invaluable amount from Russell, coming off the bench and “chipping in here and there”. But, as Bailey puts it, there comes a time where you look at a side and think “where is my role to start here”. And so he left, choosing to say farewell to the club he had supported as a boy.

He departed having made 99 appearances. “I can laugh about that now,” he tells The Observer, which immediately suggests there was a time when he absolutely could not laugh about it. Recognising the depth chart for the following season, Bailey knew he had to go, making his decision in the week building up to Bath’s first league title for 29 years. A moment as a Bath supporter he would have dreamt about growing up, happening at the same time as he had to leave the club behind for his own career.

“It came to a point where I had to make this move. I have to be brave and try something new. I couldn’t explain it, it was just a feeling that this is right,” Bailey says.

“It is scary, but this is something I need to do. To get outside my comfort zone, to play as much rugby as possible. Leicester have a young, exciting group. So I thought, let’s do it.”

Those deliberations, head versus heart, took time. “I didn’t want to rush into anything based on emotion.” Bailey spoke with Geoff Parling, the incoming Leicester head coach, and “could tell he was a good man who had a good vision for the club”. Ultimately, his foresight that a rugby career can be over at any moment left him with an answer. Bailey comes from a creative background - his father is a painter, his mother is a ceramicist. Staying at Bath, with Russell having re-signed, would have left Bailey without a canvas to work on.

“There were elements at the end of last season of head versus heart. Having gone through the academy, being a Bath supporter as a kid, playing 99 games. Heart-wise, it was tough, being near my family and so on. But in my head I was thinking, ‘so what?’ You have to do what’s best for your career.

"The years fly by. I feel like I was 18 yesterday. I’m 24 now and it was an amazing chapter. I’m very thankful for all the exposure they gave me as a young player, because you have to play games and you learn so much. Some amazing experiences, some learning curves. But you also need to keep playing otherwise you’ll stagnate.”

Game time has not been an issue at Leicester. In recent weeks he has made several starts at inside centre, a position which suits his physicality in defence - “Something I prided myself on at 10. I would make sure I got tackles in early and showed teams it’s not an avenue they can target” - and acting as a second set of eyes for the in-form fly-half Billy Searle. The two start together at 10 and 12 for England “A” on Friday night against Ireland “A” at Thomond Park.

When Bailey was last involved with the senior England side he was “quite fearless”, chipping balls over in the warm-up in Dublin off his wrong foot, “oblivious”" to the magnitude of it all. Several players in recent years have taken the path from the “A” team into Borthwick’s side. Perhaps, Bailey will be next.

Fittingly, in the summer he finished his degree in International Development and Economics at the University of Bath, attending his graduation ceremony in the city’s famous Abbey.

“It felt like serendipity. A really nice end to that chapter,” he notes. “You never know how long your career is going to be. You just want to express yourself and see what you can do, challenge yourself.” Making that leap, away from everything he has ever known, has given Bailey the opportunity to find out.

Photograph by David Rogers/Getty Images