Wood Returns To Help Bath Make It Six From Six


Martyn Wood
By Glen Leat
October 17 2003

Bath scrum-half, Martyn Wood, will hope this weeks' trip around the world has not sapped his energy as he lines up for his new club against Saracens on Sunday at The Rec. The visitors have made a poor start to the season but always give Bath a tough time as can be seen from recent results.

Bath's perfect five out of five winning streak is the best start to the season by any club since the 1997/98 season and coach Connolly will be disappointed if his team doesn't improve this to six out of six. After a weeks respite against Rotherham, though Bath made heavy weather of the first half, a win in this game will be the perfect springboard for tough games against Newcastle, Leicester and Glawster over the next three weeks. 

Saracens have an appalling recent away record with just one Premiership win in their last 13 games but their record at The Rec is good in the Premiership with four out of six wins and they must hope that another win in the West Country will kick start an otherwise stuttering campaign.

Bath's success this season is largely due to the consistency of starting line-up and the Aussie coaches will be relieved to see Martyn Wood returning from their homeland to maintain this position. The Bath backs are suffering badly with injuries and the loss of Wood would have made the task much more difficult, however it is likely both Matt Perry and Brendan Daniel will be able to return from the medic's couch to easy Connolly's worries.

Form so far this season has to point to another Bath victory but they will need to start as they finished last week if they are to make a grab for the precious scoring bonus point. A repeat of last week's first half display could see this turn in to a real dogfight because Sarries will not give us the (second) chances offered on a plate by Rotherham.

Probable Bath Line Up

15 Matt Perry
14 Brendan Daniel
13 Andrew Higgins
12 Olly Barkley
11 Lee Best
10 Chris Malone
9  Martyn Wood
1  David Flatman
2 Jonathan Humphreys ©
3 Duncan Bell
4 Steve Borthwick
5 Rob Fidler
6 Andy Beattie
7 Michael Lipman
8 Zak Feaunati

Click here to see the latest league table.

Click on to the Saracens site for their perspective on things.

In preparation for this clash let's have a look at a few recent statistics:

Played 15 %
Bath Won 7 47
Saracens 8 53
Drawn 0 0

Biggest Win

Bath 49 - 6 27 Apr 1991
Saracens 50 - 23 14 Dec 1997

Last Meetings (Bath scores first)

1 Mar 2003 30 - 9 The Rec
8 Sept 2002 3 - 28 Vic Road
17 March 2002 11 - 33 Vic Road
15 Sept 2001 20 - 27 The Rec
30 Dec 2000 31 - 11 Vic Road
30 Sept 2000 21 - 33 The Rec
6 May 2000 40 - 27 The Rec
30 Dec 1999 19 - 6 Vic Road
28 Mar 1999 33 - 14 Vic Road
19 Dec 1998 11 - 19 The Rec
10 Apr 1998 13 - 29 The Rec
14 Dec 1997 23 - 50 Vic Road
3 May 1997 29 - 36 Enfield
4 Jan 1997 35 - 33 The Rec
13 Apr 1996 21 - 15 Enfield

Picture of Martyn Wood courtesy of Martin Moore