By Glen Leat
October 19 2002

GR.A.N Parma can fly home knowing that they may have lost the actual match today by 57-19 but they won a moral victory over their (so called) superiors in the rugby hierarchy! In what should have been a rugby festival for Bath fans instead we were invited to a party thrown by the Chuckle Brothers!

On a beautiful autumn afternoon in front of a near capacity crowd against a team Bath of old would have destroyed our near first choice team struggled to get a grip on the game and allowed the Italians to go home with their heads held high. Forget the score, this was a performance from the bottom drawer and one I will be pleased to relegate to the dark reaches of my memory. If this was our preparation for the next league game against the Leeds Tykes then we have handed them the initiative already by performing like a third rate outfit; it was appalling.

We may have scored a hatful of tries but we also conceded three and it could have been more had the visitors taken their chances. On one occasion they intercepted a Bath pass but the full back and winger didn't have the gumption or pace to run the length of the field and on another it was only an infringement which disallowed the try scored by Marco Fiorani after he again had run the full length of the pitch.

I have been supporting the inclusion of Chris Malone so far this year because I believe we have to look beyond Mike Catt, but today this guy looked totally out of his depth and if he can't control a game against a team who would struggle to get in to our second division then there is little hope for him against the big guns. At half-time I thought Foley would have put Malone out of his misery by moving Barkley to No 10 and getting Thirlby off the bench but he didn't and therefore we saw more of the same. It was 24-0 to Bath in the first half and only 33-19 in the second when the visitors should have been tiring and accepting of a massive defeat.

Our only lines of running in the backs was straight up and down with no angles or variety of any sort, the attack was static with players standing still as they took passes, there was no invention and consequently we struggled to break through the Parma defence. Were players frightened to do anything which may result in injury, were they not taking the game seriously or are they just out of form?

If I was one of the coaches at Bath I would have the players in tomorrow to start training for next week, however if the players were following orders today I would be on the local TV and radio to apologise to the fans who tipped up their money through the gates to watch this pile of poo.

Play like that again Bath and expect to get relegated from the Zurich Premiership!

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

Question: By How many points will Bath beat GRAN Parma at home? 10 3% 20 3% 30 25% 40 18% 50 26% more 25%

Bath:

15. Perry, 14, Danielli, 13, Maggs, 12, Crockett, 11, Barkley, 10, Malone, 9, Cooper, 1, Barnes, 2, Humphreys, 3, Galasso, 4, Borthwick, 5, Grewcock , 6, Scaysbrook, 7, Lloyd, 8, N. Thomas