By Glen Leat
September 14 2002

After a dire first half and an exciting and much improved second half Bath fans thought their team had grabbed a win through a late Dan Lyle try only to have the victory snatched from their hands with a last kick of the match drop goal from Alex King to tie the score at 27-27.

The opening game of the season at the Rec saw a bowling green-like pitch presented to the two teams by the Bath groundsman, probably looking better than it ever has, yet during the first half both Bath and Wasps players made little use of the gardener's hard work as they squandered possession and position by continuous poor play. Bath gave up an early kickable penalty yet the bloke who is now probably better known as being Gaby Yourath's husband than a rugby player, Kenny Logan, missed and then Wasps similarly conceded a penalty but this time the kicker, Chris Malone, was on target and his task of taking over the kicking duties from the injured Olly Barkley was made that little bit easier by getting some success under his belt.

Chris Malone was under a lot of pressure today, not just because he was kicking the goals in place of Olly Barkley who showed a cool head and sure foot at London Irish, but also because he has replaced Mike Catt as the starting fly-half. For much of the game Malone looked unsure with the ball in hand, waiting a fraction too long to release the play, but he is a strong player and appears able to ride tackles and towards the end he was off-loading the ball after committing his tackler and so opening some space for his colleagues. It was no co-incidence that as Malone increased in confidence so Bath's attacking options increased. Coach Foley has to persist with Malone as he offers reliable goal kicking if selection issues prevent the picking of Olly Barkley.

It was a pleasure to see Gareth Cooper getting through a whole game at the Rec and the little Welshman clearly enjoyed his confrontation against his international mentor Rob Howley. Cooper would have done well to watch the way in which Howley controlled the scrum play on the Wasps put-in as this placed extra pressure on the Bath front-row without attracting the wrath of the referee. At times the Bath play from the scrums and rucks were as slow and labourious as last season and Cooper has to speed things up to keep the opposition on the back foot. Yet in the last quarter the Bath backs came alive and Cooper made a few dashes up-field and generally helped raise the tempo of the game; given the speed and talent in the Bath backs they have to play at a higher pace than we have seen so far this season because this will definitely create holes through which they can run to set up scoring opportunities.

A second successful penalty fell to Malone after 18 minutes and it was not until the 25th minute that Wasps got themselves on the score board when Alex King replaced Logan and kicked a simple penalty. From the restart Chris Malone kicked a fantastic ball for his forwards to chase, the hang-time must have been several very long seconds, but unfortunately Andy Beattie could not catch the ball cleanly against a struggling Wasps defence and so Bath lost a great attacking position.

After seeing skipper Danny Grewcock sent off last week it was disappointing to see ex-skipper Dan Lyle sin binned in the 31st minute for what the referee deemed was a professional foul. Lyle was furious, perhaps both with himself and the referee, and threw up his hands in horror at the decision. With his team holding their own in a generally scrappy affair the US Eagle knew Bath could not afford to contain a speedy Wasps back division with just fourteen men. And then Wasps made both Bath and Lyle pay for conceding this offence.

Within a minute Kenny Logan received a lovely pass which just required a trot in to the line, but he dropped it. A let off for the home side. Bath then spent the next eight minutes manfully defending their line but it was only a matter of time before Alex King drew the Bath defence over to the left hand side of the pitch and then launched a "Balshaw bomb" across field for the ever present Josh Lewsey to catch and fall in to the goal area for a try. A super touch line kick from King saw the score stretch to 6 - 10 to the visitors.

All Bath had to do was keep their heads and reach half-time just four points behind when the most experienced player in the Bath ranks, Mike Catt, had a rush of blood to the head and launched a totally stupid cross-field pass which was easily intercepted by Roiser who ran the length of the field to set up Josh Lewsey for his second try of the game, this time under the posts. A 6 - 17 half time score was devastating for the Bath players and supporters and heads hung low during the half time break.

Within four minutes of the restart Bath reduced the deficit with another Malone penalty but what was thought to be the final nail in the Bath coffin was hammered home by referee Whitehouse when he awarded a penalty try to Wasps in the 56th minute. The conversion made the score 9 - 24 and the game appeared to have slipped out of the grasp of Michael Foley's charges. But this is a new Bath Rugby and these lads were not yet beaten.

To the background chant of "Ogi,Ogi, Ogi - Bath, Bath, Bath" the blue, black and whites picked up their game and in the 59th minute Mike Catt set up Simon Danielli but the ex-Bristol winger could not beat his marker for what would have been a try in the left hand corner. Frustrating for all Bath supporters but at least this was progress.However within a minute Danielli caught a clearance kick on half-way and took on the Wasps first line of defence, he slipped the ball to Maggs who charged like a man possessed. Tindall took the ball from his centre colleague and ran through some weak defending to score Bath's first try of the season. How everyone roared their approval; how the Bath player cheered their mate and Tindall managed to dance a little jig which demonstrated that he was the happiest man in Bath this afternoon. A successful conversion brought the score to 16 - 24 and suddenly Bath were back in the game.

A 64th minute penalty attempt was missed by Malone but two minutes later he rectified things by slotting home a simple kick to make the score 19 - 24 and another successful Malone kick made things 22 - 24, oh the excitement! One more Malone penalty would have been enough for a Bath victory and the downing of a few beers in the Georgian City when suddenly up popped Tom Voyce in the 82nd minute and totally split a beleaguered Wasps defence to set up Dan Lyle for a very late try - the Rec went crazy. Malone missed the conversion and just as we were all trying to calm our hearts and thinking about two wins from three games up pops Alex King and levels the game with a forty yard drop kick - damn!

Let's look at the result of your prediction for this game:

Question: Will Bath beat Wasps? Yes 42% No 54% Draw 1% Don't Know 3%

Let's have a look at the latest league table.

So what did you think of the Bath players in this game? Vote by clicking on to here

Bath scorers
Tries: Tindall, Lyle
Cons: Malone (1)
Pens: Malone (5)
Drop Goal:

Bath:

15. Mike Catt 14. Simon Danielli 13. Mike Tindall 12. Kevin Maggs 11. Tom Voyce 10. Chris Malone 9. Gareth Cooper 1. Dave Barnes 2. Jonathan Humphreys
3. Alessio Galasso 4. Andy Beattie 5. Danny Grewcock 6. Gavin Thomas 7. Dan Lyle 8. Nathan Thomas

Photo - courtesy of Stuart Anderton