Bath Fly South To Face Montauban

By Glen Leat
January 10 2003

Bath travel to France for the Parker Pen clash against Montauban knowing that they must put the disappointing display at Leeds out of their minds and hoping the return of Iain Balshaw at full-back will inject a bit of life into what was last week a dormant performance.

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Whilst glad to see the return of Balsh I am more than a little surprised to see him replacing Matt Perry at full-back with Pezza moving to the wing spot in place of a very out of form Tom Voyce. Given that we all agree that Pezza's pace is not his strong point whereas his defensive skills both on the ground and in the air are much better than Balshaw's it is very strange to see this formation. In the few appearances we have seen of the flying Lancastrian he has been very positive in attack but still unsure of himself in defence.

Obviously the Bath coaching team do not see Montauban as a massive threat to their forwards because they have announced Andy Long in the starting line-up; one assumes from this that the tactic will not be to kick for touch from penalties as Long's throwing this season has been so bad he has made Ronnie Regan look like "dead-eye Dick"! Dan Lyle also makes a return from injury to the squad as a replacement and no doubt will use part of this game as check on his fitness.

Not knowing anything about the opposition it is impossible to make a prediction about the score but given that our coaches must have done their home work I will plump for a 15 point victory to Bath.

Bath Team

15 Iain Balshaw
14 Simon Danielli
13 Kevin Maggs
12 Mike Tindall
11 Matt Perry
10 Olly Barkley
9 Gareth Cooper
1 Dave Barnes
2 Andy Long
3 Alessio Galasso
4 Steve Borthwick
5 Danny Grewcock
6 Andy Beattie
7 Adam Vander
8 Nathan Thomas