In 19 competitive matches against Bath, Newcastle have only won eight matches, and only once away. We last met in December 20th 2003 on the day of the England-Barbarians farce at Twickenham; Bath winning the match 20-10 as they continued their march on at the top of the Premiership. Cup Final hero Phil Dowson scored our only try of the match, as he did in the home match in October which we won 19-17 in front of the Sky cameras. Previous matches are

13/11/93 The Rec Courage League Division 1 L3-46

26/3/94 Kingston Park Courage League Division 1 L5-29

23/8/97 The Rec Allied Dunbar Premiership 1 W20-13

11/5/98 Gateshead Allied Dunbar Premiership 1 W20-15

12/9/98 Gateshead Allied Dunbar Premiership 1 W19-17

9/1/99 Kingston Park Tetley’s Bitter Cup 4th round W25-22

16/1/99 The Rec Allied Dunbar Premiership 1 L11-16

7/3/99 Kingston Park C+G Cup Quarter Final W33-29

13/11/99 The Rec Allied Dunbar Premiership 1 L12-45

25/1/00 Kingston Park Allied Dunbar Premiership 1 L16-20

16/9/00 The Rec Zurich Premiership L12-19

11/2/01 Kingston Park Zurich Premiership W24-23

28/4/01 The Rec Zurich Championship QF L9-18

25/11/01 The Rec Zurich Premiership L9-24

28/4/02 Kingston Park Zurich Premiership W36-9

17/11/02 Kingston Park Zurich Premiership L20-24

10/5/03 The Rec Zurich Premiership L12-24

25/10/03 Kingston Park Zurich Premiership W19-17

20/12/03 The Rec Zurich Premiership L10-20

Many of our past clashes have been quite big matches. The match at Gateshead on 11/5/98 holds the distinction of being our record home crowd, over 11,000 packing the stadium south of the Tyne for our last home match of the Championship season. A Kingston Park record 7,319 watched the home match of 2001, two weeks before we won the Tetley’s Bitter Cup. And our visit south on the last day of 2002-03 on 10/5/03 was the game that sealed Bath’s Premiership survival at the expense of their friends from Bristol. Our team that day was J Shaw (D Walder), T May (L Botham), J Noon, M Mayerhofler, M Stephenson, J Wilkinson © 2DG 2P, J Grindal (H Charlton), I Peel, N Makin, M Hurter (M Ward), C Hamilton, H Vyvyan, C Newby (J Dunbar), A Mower, R Arnold (P Dowson). We were missing Mark Andrews through injury and Stuart Grimes through suspension, but having already secured survival it was a game for us to enjoy, not need to win. It also represented the last Falcons appearances for Liam Botham, Craig Newby, Richard Arnold and, so far, Andrew Mower.

Bath have two ex-Falcons in their ranks, namely prop David Barnes (who never played a league match for us) and Christian Balshen, who played in our one Heineken Cup campaign.

Given our away record and Bath’s success last season, we certainly cannot take anything for granted on Saturday. As I have stated, our record at Bath is woeful. However, I feel we are improving and our defence was fantastic in Worcester, whatever the quality of the opposing attack. Therefore I predict a tight match, and wouldn’t want to decide either way. But if you are the compulsive gambling type… Bath 17-20 Newcastle. You heard it here first!

The teams:-

15 Joe Shaw
14 Tom May
13 Jamie Noon
12 Mark Mayerhofler
11 Michael Stephenson
10 Jonny Wilkinson (joint captain)
9 James Grindal
1 Ian Peel (joint captain)
2 Andy Long
3 Marius Hurter
4 Luke Gross
5 Stuart Grimes
6 Mike McCarthy
7 Colin Charvis
8 Phil Dowson 

16 Micky Ward
17 Matt Thompson
18 Craig Hamilton
19 Semo Sititi
20 Matthew Burke
21 Hall Charlton
22 Dave Walder

Bath will announce their lineup on Friday morning.