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Bath and Irish To Set Crowd Record
By Glen Leat
March 19 2004
Bath travel to the Madejski Stadium on Sunday for the first of a two week "double header" against London Irish. The St Patrick's Day match is likely to be a sell out and with 21,000 tickets already sold, Bath have been now involved in the two biggest selling gates in Premiership history.

The previous record attendance for a Zurich Premiership match was 20,793 set for the Bristol v Bath match on 10th May 2003. London Irish's current
attendance record of 20,318 was set against Wasps match last December. Next time a Brizzler accuses us of not being a rugby supporting city just quote these facts!

Team selection headaches return for John Connolly as the fiasco of important domestic games clashing with international week-ends once again surface. Not only has Knuckles lost the services of Tindall, Grewcock, Catt, Maggs and Danielli but with the possible injury to Paul Grayson, Olly Barkley may be forced to miss the Irish clash and Steve Borthwick will only be available if he survives his England bench duty.

So who is going to start for Bath? The various combinations are something of a nightmare and training this week must have been very difficult: not exactly what we want in the run up to such a crucial match! The line up could look something like this...

...with his omission from the England set up Iain Balshaw could be at full-back though there is still a doubt over his fitness in which case Chris Malone will step in to his boots. However should Olly Barkley not be picked by Connolly, Malone will have to move to fly half, Wylie Human move to full-back and Spencer Davey could be drafted in to the starting line up. 

After signing a new two year contract, Alex Crockett will be in the centre next to Andrew Higgins and Paul Sampson will start on the wing. The pack should return to it's early season structure, which is no bad thing, though James Scaysbrooke may come in to the back row if Andy Beattie is preferred to James Hudson in the second row alongside Rob Fidler.

The major frustration for the international fringe players like Borthwick and Barkley is that they may not get a game for their country and, because they miss club training, they miss the club game because it is not easy for a coach to pick them, despite being fit and raring to go. Feeling short changed by this? You and the other 21,000plus supporters have every right to feel cheated by the current organisation of English rugby and it's about time the powers that be got it sorted.

Irish make just one change to the starting line-up of the team that played Newcastle at the end of February. Rob Hardwick returns from injury to
replace Doug Wheatley in the front row. Unavailable for selection due to a knee injury is Pierre Durant.

Sunday is also an important day for three London Irish players as they record special milestones in their careers.  The evergreen No. 8, Chris Sheasby
makes his 200th league appearance - he is the only player currently playing in the Premiership who also played Division One rugby in the inaugural
season of the English leagues in 1987/88. Kieron Dawson and Barry Everitt play their 150th and 100th games respectively.

This was a tight fixture last season and there is no reason to doubt it will be similarly tight this week-end. My view is Bath will get back to their winning ways and gave a narrow victory - less than seven points I suspect.

Possible Bath Team
15 Iain Balshaw/Chris Malone 14 Wylie Human 13 Alex Crockett 12 Andrew Higgins 11 Paul Sampson10 Olly Barkley/Chris Malone 9 Martin Wood 1 David Flatman/David Barnes 2 Jonathan Humphreys 3 Duncan Bell 4 Steve Borthwick/James Hudson 5 Rob Fidler 6 Andy Beattie 7 Michael Lipman 8 Zak Feaunati

London Irish Team
15. Michael Horak; 14. Paul Sackey; 13. Geoff Appleford; 12. Rob Hoadley; 11. Justin Bishop; 10. Mark Mapletoft; 9. Darren Edwards; 1. Neal Hatley; 2. Naka Drotske; 3. Rob Hardwick; 4. Ryan Strudwick (captain); 5. Bob Casey; 6. Declan Danaher; 7. Kieron Dawson; 8. Chris Sheasby.

Substitutes:
16. Doug Wheatley; 17. Adrian Flavin; 18. Kieran Roche; 19. Nick Kennedy; 20. Phil Murphy; 21. Kevin Barrett; 22. Barry Everitt.

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Click on to the London Irish site for their perspective on things.

Click here to read about the encounter between Bath and London Irish earlier in the year.

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

Played 14 %
Bath Won 11 78
L Irish Won 2 14
Drawn 1 8

Biggest Win

Bath 64 - 16 11 Mar 2000
London Irish 47 - 22 17 Apr 1999

Last Meetings (Bath scores first)

10 Apr 2003 18- 15 The Rec
1 Sept 2002 24- 22 Madejski
10 Apr 2002 15 - 31 Madejski
11 Nov 2001 19- 11 The Rec
14 Mar 2001 58 - 13 Madejski
23 Dec 2000 56 - 20 The Rec
11 Mar 2000 64 - 16 The Stoop
30 Oct 1999 25 - 25 The Rec
17 Apr 1999 22 - 47
10 Oct 1998 23 - 20 The Rec
28 Apr 1998 20 - 3 The Rec
28 Mar 1998 49 - 35 Sunbury
8 Mar 1997 46 - 3 The Rec
5 Oct 1996 56 - 31 Sunbury


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