Bath Look To Draw The Sting Of The Wasps

Adding interest to this fixture, if it was needed, there is the clash of potential England fly-halves as Olly Barkley and Alex King line up to impress Sir Clive Woodward. Whilst King is probably ahead in the pecking order, young Olly has been outstanding this year and shown he has the temperament as well as talent to do the business for his country.  

In recent seasons Wasps have tended to time their run well, enjoying far better results in the second half of the season. For this game they are also coming off the back of a marvellous away win in Perpignan and their fans are very confident. Looking at the site poll (below) the Waspies have a narrow lead but I think the Londoners(sic), well their supporters at least, may have underestimated the talent, sheer grit and team spirit we have down at the Rec these days.

Question: Will Bath Beat Wasps?

Yes 46% No 52% Draw 1%

Bath's only defeat in any competition since last October was away to Beziers, and we soon put that right. Our only other loss was the narrow squeak by Newcastle up north. At home Bath have hammered out 13 straight wins since losing to The Saints in March last year. Mind you Wasps have a similar impressive record, having lost just one of their last 12 matches and their away record is well worth noting with 6 on the trot.

The bottom line is this is a game between two good, in-form teams who will be keen to win but who also know that a loss is not the end of the world in terms of the title challenge. As things stand at present few rugby followers would bet against these two teams facing each other at the end of the season in the Championship Final. Despite the closeness of these teams in terms of skill etc, let's not forget that Bath are still 10 points clear at the head of the table and that wasn't achieved by luck.

The latest weather forecast shows the rain stopping tomorrow for some 3-4 days and hopefully this will provide the conditions in which our very mobile forwards and highly exciting backs can show the Rec faithful and Sky punters what Bath Rugby is all about this season.

I can't wait for the game and I can't wait for the Wasps fans to come on to our site on Sunday accepting their defeat graciously and accepting that Bath is the top team this year.

Oh, and one last thing, can someone remind Martyn Wood that his ex-colleagues will be trying to wind him up throughout the game and we'll not easily forgive him if he bites!

C'mon Bath - by five points!! 

Possible Bath Side:

15 Iain Balshaw
14 Wylie Human
13 Andrew Higgins
12 Kevin Maggs
11 Simon Danielli
10 Olly Barkley
9 Martyn Wood
1 David Flatman
2 Jonathan Humphreys
3 Duncan Bell
4 Steve Borthwick
5 Danny Grewcock
6 Andy Beattie
7 Michael Lipman
8 Zak Feaunati

Click here to remind yourself about the last match against Wasps.

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

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