By Glen Leat
January 17 2003

Bath welcome Montauban to the Rec on Saturday for the second leg of the Parker Pen Cup Quarter Final and the Bath fans are confident of a home win as 94% of the voters on the BathRugbyERE Match Poll predict a home win. Surely this number of people can't be wrong.

Given the up and down (unfortunately more down than up) nature of Bath's form over the past two years you would be hard pushed to find someone willing to place a hefty bet on Bath winning any matches but if ever there was to be a banker this season this really has to be it. If Bath fail to make good the small deficit from last week and cannot use this match to prepare themselves for the tougher challenge of the Powergen Cup confrontation with Northampton next week then all is lost. Forget the tub thumping of players, management and supporters over recent months as we all cling on to the odd crumb of comfort, every game for the rest of the season is win at all costs.

A few changes can be found in the starting line up with Alex Crockett in for an injured Mike Tindall and Jonathan Humphreys (thankfully) displacing Andy Long. The ever present David Barnes has been given a well deserved rest and Simon Emms makes a (recently) rare start.

Clearly Bath should not have lost the game last week and hopefully the coaches will have given the players a bit of a verbal "good hiding" so they smarten up their act a bit. I hesitate to predict a score for this match because there is a good chance the French team will push Bath close despite the (alleged) difference in class(sic).

Another poor Bath display will raise the despondency-meter to its highest level of the year in the Bath pubs and clubs tomorrow night and will certainly get the messageboard humming. What's the ulcer expectancy for struggling coaches these days? Poor Michael Foley et al will be reaching for the Rennie by the bucket-load if their overpaid charges let them down once again.

Bath Team

15 Iain Balshaw
14 Simon Danielli
13 Kevin Maggs
12 Alex Crockett
11 Matt Perry
10 Olly Barkley
9 Gareth Cooper
1 Simon Emms
2 Jonathan Humphreys
3 Alessio Galasso
4 Steve Borthwick
5 Danny Grewcock
6 Andy Beattie
7 Adam Vander
8 Nathan Thomas