A year ago we were a squad bereft, with several internationals on a World Cup sojourn in France. A young Danny Cipriani was left out of England's squad. He was to become a fixture at stand off for Wasps, having made the transition from fullback far faster than most would have expected.

The playmakers' season ended tragically with a fracture dislocation against a feisty Bath team, which had just fallen short of coming in the top two during the regular season. Cips was carted off to hospital with predictions of his being out of the game for 8-9 months. Miraculously, barely five months later, he faces the same team in his first game back.

Ironically, the only way back into the England elite squad depended on a senior player getting injured. Poor old Jonny twisted his knee last evening and looks to have made way for our prodigal ten already.

Apart from Cips, Wasps welcome back Tim Payne, Rafa Ibanez, Simon Shaw in the pack and James Haskell to the bench.

Bath are playing superb, expansive football this season. They even have a flying impact player in Duncan Bell, who scorched over for a superb try at the weekend. If only we could find a prop like him!

Wasps will have to be at their pugnacious best to live with their free flowing, all-out attacking philosophy. The team has had to be rotated too, given the compressed fixture list and an England elite edivt to rest players during this period. This is going to be a close run thing. Welcome back, Danny boy! Wasps to scrape a narrow win, despite our back three playing like eternal strangers!

Teams:

Wasps: 15 Tom Voyce; 14 Paul Sackey, 13 Riki Flutey, 12 Dominic Waldouck, 11 Josh Lewsey; 10 Danny Cipriani, 9 Eoin Reddan; 1 Tim Payne, 2 Raphael Ibanez (Capt.), 3 Phil Vickery, 4 Simon Shaw, 5 Tom Palmer, 6 Joe Worsley, 7 Tom Rees, 8 John Hart

Bench: 16 Rob Webber, 17 Tom French, 18 Richard Birkett, 19 James Haskell, 20 Rob Hoadley, 21 Mark Robinson, 22 Jeremy Staunton

Bath: 15 Nick Abendanon; 14 Joe Maddock, 13 Alex Crockett, 12 Shaun Berne, 11 Jack Cuthbert; 10 Butch James, 9 Michael Claassens;
1 David Barnes, 2 Pieter Dixon, 3 Matt Stevens, 4 Justin Harrison, 5 Peter Short, 6 Stuart Hooper, 7 Michael Lipman (Capt.), 8 Jonny Faamatuainu

Bench: 16 Lee Mears, 17 Duncan Bell, 18 Josh Ovens, 19 James Scaysbrook, 20 Scott Bemand, 21 Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu, 22 Andrew Higgins

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