The fans of the former team are supremely confident of a win. The fans of the latter just happy to be there. The date is April 16^th, 2005, and the teams in question are Bath and Leeds Tykes.

Nobody gave Leeds a hope in this cup final. Yet their energy, physicality and sheer tenacity, coupled with the best game of his life as a Leeds player from Gordon Ross, produced the result that none of us could really have expected. Hoped for, yes, expected, no.

Fast forward by almost exactly four years, and we have the same sort of set-up, but the roles are reversed. Leeds will have to be supremely confident but their recent meeting with Moseley, together with Moseley's outstanding performance against Exeter prior to that should ensure that any air of arrogance should be well and truly stamped upon.

Moseley proved that relegation candidates they may be, but they have a physicality up front that is not to be ignored (unlike, with all due respect, our two most recent league opponents where the scrummaging from the Leeds tight five(s) was supremely dominant), and that is coupled with extremely fast backs. Although I didn't make the trip to Billesley Common, I am reliably informed that the Moseley backs made us look a bit ordinary in the second half.

But then again, the Moseley coach Ian Smith has been interviewed and seems to be suggesting that they shall be concentrating on the league fixtures they have backed up after this weekend. He has implied that the strongest possible XV isn't necessarily the XV that will take the field at noon on Saturday. "It'll be a nice day out, but we'll have most of our thoughts on avoiding relegation" is the basis of his message.

But don't be fooled. A cup final is a cup final. No matter where you are in the league, you want to win matches. You never, ever, ever go out to limit the damage and hope you can move on to better things after that. Leeds' visit to Twickenham in 2005 was the catalyst for better things. They beat Bath in that intense final and used that mindset to drive them on to secure their top-flight status in a winning streak which still hasn't been bettered at the wrong end of the Premiership table (much to Harlequins' chagrin that year!).

This year, Leeds have nothing left to prove. Neither do they have anything left to save themselves for, with promotion secured they can go all out and put out the very strongest team possible; especially as it could be the last appearance in a Leeds shirt for one or two players who may be moving on to other clubs.

So, taken at face value, with Moseley not caring and the promotion pressure off Leeds, it should be a cakewalk, and a comfortable afternoon of free-flowing, try scoring rugby and rock-solid Leeds defence, allowing a carefree afternoon for all the Leeds faithful travelling down the M1.

But the memories of 2005 still bug me. Being the underdog was good for us that day. I just hope we can do to Moseley what Bath failed to do against us, and maintain our 100% record at HQ.

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