Lee Mears has gained a rare start in the England front row, packing with Michael Lipman and the man who in my opinion should be the national captain, Steve Borthwick.  Another top Bath forward Matt Stevens, is on the bench alongside our own Mathew Tait, whose team-mates Jonny Wilkinson, Toby Flood and Jamie Noon again make up the England midfield.

And the south-westerners’ pack will be reinforced again next season with the signings of Stuart Hooper and Wallaby Justin Harrison, although another England boy Olly Barkley has agreed to join former Bath men Mike Tindall, Iain Balshaw and Gareth Cooper in the Gloucester backline in 2008/09.

There are a plethora of other England internationals in the Bath squad not involved in the Six Nations include our former wing Michael Stephenson, along with Nick Abendanon, Duncan Bell, Rob Fidler, David Flatman, Nick Walshe and Danny Grewcock.  Flatman is expected to take the place of ex-Falcon David Barnes at loosehead on Saturday with the latter injured.

Despite all of those experienced forward faces, our hosts’ faith in youth is also proven by the exciting young English backs Joe Maddock, Matt Banahan (who has scored seven tries this season), Ryan Davis and Andrew Higgins, who are guided by South African international half-backs Butch James and Michael Claassens, and Australia A centre Shaun Berne who scored one of Bath’s five tries at Kingston Park in October.

The day after the World Cup final, Bath won their fourth successive game at KP, whilst we have only one win against them since the 2003 World Cup, at the Rec in September 2004 when Stephenson put in a huge display.

In 2007/08, the Rec has been a fortress for Bath, only Wasps winning there in the Premiership and Cardiff in the Heineken Cup.  That Wasps defeat was actually our opponents’ last run out at home, on February 16^th, and four tries from Higgins, Abendanon, Daniel Browne and Samoan international centre Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu (phew!) couldn’t prevent a Danny Cipriani-inspired 34-42 away win.

Last week however Bath, who sit a comfortable third in the table five points ahead of Sale but just three behind leaders and arch-rivals Gloucester, beat their other bitter rivals Bristol at Ashton Gate 9-19 in front of 16,234 fans.  Despite trailing at half-time, Higgins’ try and Barkley’s boot saw Bath triumph, following on from their previous outing which saw them put Leeds to the sword at Headingley.

As well Wasps doing the double over Bath, only Saracens and Leicester have beaten them in the league this season (why does it seem every week I’m writing about how few games the opposition has lost?).

Apart from the win in 2004, we have only won once at the Rec, our very first Premiership match in 1997, so now is a good time for a third victory there.  We will have Joe McDonnell and Carl Hayman able to play together as they did in our last game at Gloucester, both putting in superb performances, and if the same midfield can fire again as they did at Kingsholm we can look forward to at the very least a competitive main course before the dessert of the Calcutta Cup.

McDonnell has been named on the bench for Saturday as John Fletcher keeps faith with Jon Golding and Carl Hayman in the front row, whilst Geoff Parling partners Mark Sorenson in the second row.  Alex Tait, Tom Dillon and Steve Jones all continue in the team and Rob Vickers is on the bench.

15 Tom May
14 Ollie Phillips
13 Tom Dillon
12 Alex Tait
11 John Rudd
10 Steve Jones
9 Lee Dickson
1 Jon Golding
2 Matt Thompson
3 Carl Hayman
4 Geoff Parling
5 Mark Sorenson
6 Brent Wilson
7 Ben Woods
8 Phil Dowson (captain)

Replacements:
16 Rob Vickers
17 Joe McDonnell
18 Tim Swinson
19 Russell Winter
20 James Grindal
21 Joe Shaw
22 Tim Visser

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