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Team News: Bath vs Leeds Carnegie (Cont'd)

Diego you legend you!
By Andy Brown April 4 2008
So we've seen the team sheet. Here we examine what the head-to-heads might throw our way. There are some interesting match ups, and hopefully this will tell our Bath supporting punters a little more about the Leeds side. We start with the midfield generals - a key area of any battle, where one side has the experience, and the other has the youth and enthusiasm...
   

Olly Barkley

10

Adam Greendale

Olly Barkley showed a masterly display at Bath's last outing at Headingley to ensure there was no chance of Leeds getting anything from the game. This was just a day or so after the announcement of his impending departure to Gloucester, and he showed the class he has that has been neglected by a series of England selectors - but for Jonny and Charlie, he would've been a much becapped England flyhalf.

Adam Greendale is the new exciting prospect who has come up through the Leeds academy and has shown in A-league games and other fixtures (including some memorable age-grade representative games) that he has what it takes. This will be his first first XV start and eclipses the GP experienced James Brookes as backup fly to the injured Alberto di Barnado. An interesting battle between these two.

 

Matt Banahan

11

Leigh Hinton

Matt Banahan is the large framed, lightening quick winger who made Jon Holtby look decidedly ordinary with his try-scoring sidestep at Headingley earlier in the season. Has been consistently good in the Bath side and is becoming a crowd favourite very quickly.

Leigh Hinton, normally at full-back, plays on the wing to make way at 15 for Jon Goodridge. However the "Brummie Bomber" (as Mark_C has dubbed him) is pretty damn quick and has everything you would expect from an attacking full-back cum winger, including a deadly long-range boot. He has really upped his game this season in the Premiership and looks like one of the class players of the Leeds team.

 

David Flatman

1

Mike McDonald

Lee Mears

2

Rob Rawlinson

Matt Stevens

3

Fosi Pala'amo

 

A full international front-row for Bath, including two of the three for England's last Six Nations game in Lee Mears and Matt Stevens. Stevens is especially recognised as the man to lose out at international level due to Phil Vickery's position as captain of the national side. These three will be tough to deal with. However we have a front three more than capable of holding their own. Mike McDonald at loosehead has been awesome for Leeds this year - how that man keeps getting up and putting in the big hits never fails to amaze me. He looks big and he is, but he's also everywhere on the park and can really hold a scrum together. Fosi Pala'amo comes in at tighthead, sacrificing a bit of mobility for sheer unadulterated bulk, and with Rob Rawlinson in the middle, there is the basis for a formidable scrummage right there.

 

Danny Grewcock

5

Erik Lund

Grizzled old warrior Danny Grewcock will be no stranger to anyone, and is always good for a solid seventy minutes on the pitch. Whilst you shouldn't call him a dirty player, he has the tendency to play to the limit of the laws. Big Erik, captain of rhe Norwegian national side has been another of the ND1 recruits this year that has looked completely at home in the Premiership, and it is known he has caught the eye of one or two DoRs. Would expect Lund's work in the lineout to keep Bath honest.

 

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