Bath Look To Do European Double
By Glen Leat
May 23 2003
Bath fans will travel to the Madejski Stadium on Sunday hoping their team can ensure Bath becomes the first club in rugby history to win both European trophies. Given the disappointing campaign so far this is not a bad note on which to end the season!
What a weekend I have in store: travel down
to Torquay for a couple of days on my annual
skittles team "lad's week-end",
travel back on Sunday morning to pick up
the family and drive on to Reading for a
Cup Final with a Bank Holiday Monday to aid
the recovery - life really ain't so bad!
Someone said to me the other day, "It's
a Cup Final but not a real one is it!".
Hey, it may be the second string Cup Final
in Europe but I'd rather be in it than not
and we Bath fans, with a regular diet of
Cup finals over the past 20 years need these
days out to make the bad times disappear,
even if only for a few hours. I'm sure that
both the Bath and Wasps players are not thinking
to themselves, "I'm not that bothered
about Sunday because it's only a junior trophy".
Wasps are red hot favourites with the bookies
and the Wasps fans and this should not be
surprising given that it is the second from
the top of the League playing second from
bottom, but this is a Cup competition and
anything can happen in the Cup. Looking at
the results of our website survey it is clear
that you cannot decide who will win with
both sides earning themselves 49% of the
vote.
Fortunately for us, Warren Gatland did us
a real favour earlier in the week when he
commented that Bath did not deserve to be
in the final; no doubt that comment will
be blown up on a large sheet of paper and
shown to the Bath players just as they leave
to go on to the pitch. It's probably worth
mentioning to Mr Gatland that we have already
played his boys in a Cup competition at his
place this year and again we were underdogs
but managed to walk away with the spoils.
Whilst Wasps have been in fantastic form
in the second half of the year we can draw
strength from our performances against Newcastle,
Saracens and London Irish over recent weeks.
Bath's Cup history is second to none but
we will win nothing this year if we don't
stick to certain traditions. For one I will
be taking the lucky gloves with me; these
are the gloves which helped Barnsey drop
that famous goal against Quins and encouraged
Neil Back to push Lander over amongst other
things. However we will be in real trouble
if Jack Rowell is still in the stadium with
five minutes to go; Jack has a history of
having to nip outside the ground in the dying
moments because Bath rarely have tied up
the game until the last kick and pass so
if you see him in the ground towards the
end of the game shout "Get outside Jack
or we'll lose!". If you have a Cup Final
tradition make sure you stick to it!
Despite the return to fitness of Matt Perry
and Mike Catt the Bath coaches will be reluctant
to change a winning side and so these England
internationals may have to start on the bench.
The injury to Nathan Thomas means he has
already played his last game and so there
will be a slight reshuffle in the forwards
with Andy Beattie moving to the back row
alongside Dan Lyle and Gavin Thomas.
Probable Line Up
Backs: Iain Balshaw, Tom Voyce, Kevin Maggs, Mike
Tindall, Elvis Seveali’i, Olly Barkley, Gareth
Cooper.
Forwards: David Barnes, Jonathan Humphreys, John
Mallett, Steve Borthwick, Danny Grewcock,
Andy Beattie, Dan Lyle, Gavin Thomas, .
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49%Click on to the Wasps site for their perspective on things.