Cup Final Preview

By Glen Leat
April 12 2005

The sweat pours from my brow like a mini-waterfall. My stomach could churn butter and Anadin couldn't make a pill big enough for my tense, nervous headache. I sit and stare at my feet waiting for the referee to call both teams together in readiness for the battle ahead...

The Twickenham roar is deafening and I can hardly hear myself mutter "win, win, win".

If the players think they've got it  tough they ought to have a spell on the sidelines as the committed, perhaps obsessive, supporters of Bath Rugby go through their personal pre-match routines. At least the players can absorb their excess adrenalin by running, tackling, chasing and generally doing all the things rugby players do in a big match. We have to exorcise our chemical demons by cheering, shouting, screaming and sometimes praying as the opposition sweep far too close to our line for comfort. Often silence is all one can manage as the game wraps itself around your whole body like a 20 yard blue, black and white scarf.

It's Cup Final madness yet again. 10,000 regulars are joined by an army 20,000 strong of Bathonians who are welcomed, not scorned because they don't attend every home or away match. This is the extended Bath family who come to all the big parties because they understand the importance of celebration. Not just of the game itself, not just for their own pleasure but because Bath Rugby plays a small part in their life or a larger part in the life of someone they love. 

Bath supporters have to suffer more than most in the Cup as we have everything to lose: the game, the bragging rights over our neighbours, the place in Europe but most of all the amazing 100% Cup Final record. In a perverse way I've been happy not to reach the Cup Final over the past nine years as this ensured our Played 10 Won 10 record remained intact. Why oh why did we have to get to the Final? We could lose our record! But then again we could make it Played 11 Won 11. Think positive man!!

Cup Finals provide that pain and pleasure experience, like eating delicious ice-cream with a sensitive tooth. The ups and downs of any match are multiplied 100 fold as we twist and turn in our seats at every twisty-turny moment of the game. We attack, we defend, we score, we concede points: emotions taken on a blue, black and white roller-coaster ride. The ref is rubbish, the ref is brilliant (steady, don't over do it). The touch-judges make no impact whatsoever (no change there then!). Bath score and you hug the bloke next to you despite never having clapped eyes on him before.

But what if they score first? Well, we're used to that. Bath wouldn't be Bath in a Cup Final if we weren't chasing the game. Bath players always step up to the plate on Cup Final days. Journeyman players become superstars for 80 minutes and superstars become Gods. They wear the Bath colours with the same pride as the 30,000 cheering them on.

Oh no, we're going in to this game as favourites. Bath lying third in the Premiership, with talk of a double, against Leeds struggling to stay in the top flight. Bath like to be underdogs in Cup Finals, us against the world. We smart, arrogant, urbane Barbour wearing softies who know sod-all about rugby and everyone wants to see beaten by the down to earth Yorkshire lads who deserve something for keeping Union alive in the home of Rugby League.

Forget what they say in the Olympics about the taking part being important not the winning. Take it from me, it's the winning that's important and if that means a Chris Malone penalty after 6 minutes followed by 74 minutes of dreary rugby that's good enough for me. But that won't happen this Saturday. Bath will win, not easily, but they will win. 25-12 is my prediction.