Preview: Leeds Carnegie vs Bath

At the start of the season Bath supporters were upset that their squad was weak and that the club had failed to attract enough star names to the Rec. Since then they have been somewhat less critical as their team has enjoyed a good first half of the season. Despite last week’s home defeat to Wasps

Bath are third in the GP and have been giving their fans lots to shout about. This weekend however they visit Headingley Carnegie and the form book can usually be torn up when Leeds meet Bath.

Last weekend both sides lost. The manner of their defeats could not be more different. Bath scored four tries and should have beaten Wasps. The Leeds performance at Sale was dire according to the unlucky fans who made the trip across the Pennines. Those same fans will not need reminding that the Carnegies were “bullied” into defeat at the Rec earlier in the season. So is this weekend’s result a foregone conclusion as the Bath lads are playing well above themselves and their Leeds’ counterparts played like a big girl’s blouse last time out? Of course it is not!

Every time the Carnegies lose the screw tightens a little bit more and relegation looks a little bit more likely. However there will come a point when the team gets the rub of the green for once and the players will put together a winning performance where no-one was expecting it. If that point comes on Sunday then you can wrap your fish supper in the form book. The Edgeley Park defeat had all the hallmarks of being the nadir of Leeds’ season. Players will have examined their conscience after the match and will almost certainly have decided that they can do much better than that. Couple that with the fact that it is a Six Nations weekend, which has weakened the Bath squad somewhat, and an upset is most decidedly on the cards.

Leeds will have to make changes as Joe Bedford was concussed last week but I think that Stuart Lancaster will want to give as many of last week’s beaten team the chance to make amends as he can. I expect to see the forwards put in a full eighty minutes this week. There can be no repeat of the instant capitulation that occurred at Sale. The fans do not live on past glories and I do not intend to mention any of the beatings handed out to Bath over the years. A sterling performance finishing with four or five league points will erase the memories of last week and give the club a much needed boost at this stage of the season. Can they pull it off? We’ll know soon enough!