Another vital game in a long-running saga

Any game between Gloucester and Bath is an important one and never in history have the two met with nothing at stake, so there’s nothing new about the latest episode in the long-running West Country saga at Kingsholm on Saturday lunchtime.

There’s nothing new in Glaws being third top and Bath being fourth, either, nor in the fact that with two games in hand on top two Leicester and Saracens, Saturday’s winners have every chance of cutting the gap.
Glaws have an impressive home record, of course, and won well at the Rec five long months ago, Nicky Robinson scoring 13 of the cherry and white points in an 18-3 success.
Since then Glaws have plumbed the depths once or twice, but have also hit the heights and are currently on the crest of a bit of wave. But Bath have also recovered from their shaky start to the season and have had a very impressive 2011 so far, their only defeat a Heineken Cup setback at the hands of Biarritz.
That’s a massive improvement on 2010, which ended with Bath losing twice to Ulster in the Heineken Cup in December after a bad run since that Glaws home defeat.
Bath have also, of course, set their stall out for the future with a series of big-name signings indicating that they mean business next season as well as this.
But Glaws have every reason to go into this latest showdown full of hope, though there is a warning from Bryan Redpath.
He told the Citizen: "We've got to make sure we don't get too panicky and overexcited by things.
"We said in the changing room, 'If you work hard Monday to Friday, you get your rewards on a Saturday, if you're lazy Monday to Friday, you get found out because you're not mentally prepared for the challenge.'
"At the moment we're working hard even with the small numbers. We don't have many spare people.”
That strength in depth will again be tested on Saturday in what is certain to be a tense and physical afternoon.
As with most of the other meetings between the two clubs over the years, neither can take anything for granted and the winners are likely to be the team which makes least mistakes under pressure.