Bath and England Both To Be Winners? You Bet!

By Glen Leat
November 20 2003

Bath welcome Harlequins to the Rec on Saturday, the day of the World Cup Final, and Bath supporters will be hoping their Aussie coaches only have a chance to smile in the afternoon. The Quins have a very poor track record at The Rec, winning only once in the last 15 league and Cup visits.

The last six Premiership encounters between Bath and Quins have gone with home field advantage with the only Harlequins victory over Bath at the Rec, in 15 previous visits in league and Cup, being 17-13 in the Premiership on 8 May 1999. The visitors are currently on a bit of a roll, having won their last two Zurich Premiership matches, at Leeds and at home to Northampton, and have won three of their last four Premiership away games. Nevertheless, Bath's current form and Quins' poor record at the Rec must make Bath a banker with the bookies.

Bath’s only loss in ten Premiership and Cup outings this term was 17-19 at Newcastle on 25 October. The last time Bath lost at the Rec in their last eight games in any competition was 10 - 27 to Northampton on 15 March, this represents Bath’s best home run since they won ten in succession early in 2000.

Olly Barkley and Steve Borthwick will be looking for performances that emphasise why they persuaded the judges of the Zurich Premiership Player of the Month to award a joint winner for the first time (see below for list of the judges). 

Simon Danielli was the first World Cup player to return to the fold last week, and what a game he had. After coming of the bench to replace Jamie Williams he had a spell in the sin bin and scored a try right at the death. After rumours flying around all over the place about the future of Kevin Maggs it is possible the Irish crash ball specialist will join the Bath bench; knowing our luck with injured backs it is likely Maggs will be on at an early stage of the game!

Coach John Connolly has targeted the next two league games as providing the platform for getting in to the play-offs at the end of the season. With Bath currently enjoying an eight point buffer on top of the table and so many other teams fighting for second and third spot the experienced Aussie coach is not exaggerating Bath's opportunity at the end of the season if they can win at home on Saturday and follow that with a "road win" against the Tigers. A try scoring bonus point against the Quins would make a massive difference so we may be in for some real fun to add to our celebrations after England become the first Northern Hemisphere team to win the World Cup.

The result? Bath to win by 10 points.

Click here to read about the encounter between Bath and Harlequins earlier in the year.

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

Click here to see the latest league table.

Possible Bath Line Up

15 Matt Perry 14 Wylie Human 13 Robbie Kydd 12 Andrew Higgins 11 Simon Danielli 10 Olly Barkley 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

Zurich Premiership Player of the Month Awards Panel

1. David Hands (The Times)
2. Rob Kitson (Guardian)
3. Tony Roche (The Sun)
4. Mick Cleary (Daily Telegraph)
5. Barry Newcombe (Evening Standard)
6. Paul Morgan (Rugby World)
7. Alastair Hignell (BBC Radio 5)
8. Andrew Baldock (Press Association)
9. Neil Squires (Express)
10. Miles Harrison (Sky Sports)

Bath -v- Harlequins Stats

Biggest Win

Last Meetings (Bath scores first)