By Glen Leat
April 24 2002

For the first time ever I left a Bath game before the final whistle. Today I departed the Recreation Ground with the scoreboard showing 38 minutes because I could not stand to watch another minute of total and utter rubbish. I must now reflect on whether this is the worst Bath team I have ever seen.

Normally when a new coach is appointed the team react positively in their attempt to prove to the new man they they have a part to play in his plans; based on the performances today I would imagine that Michael Foley is wondering how he can recruit fifteen new men because the ones he has at present do not deserve to wear the shirts once donned by the likes of Palmer, Horton, Barnes, Guscott, Redman, Hall, Robinson and Swift. In short the team today can only be described as a shower who are short changing their club and its supporters. I make no apologies if anyone is offended by these comments because I am sick and tired of spending my hard earned money on watching a team of over-paid, over-rated players representing my club.

Judging by today's performance we can't kick to touch, can't hold on to the ball in the tackle, lack a passing game, can't cross the gain line, can't spend more than a few moments in our opponents' half, can't win our own lineout ball, can't win our own kick-offs- so what can we do? Well our players look very good as they trot around the pitch just before kick-off and we do have the best coloured shirts in the Premiership (though given the loss of our stripes in recent years we can't even get the kit right these days).

Yes we are missing a few players, though not many; even Mike Catt would not have been able to act as the glue to repair all of the breakages in play today. Had Leicester taken us seriously today with their play we would have been at the end of a right good hammering not just a 27-9 defeat.I've a good mind to sue the players of Bath Rugby under the Trades Descriptions Act for their pathetic attempt at mimicking professional footballers!

The lineout is a shambles with all this running up and down. The players are always late to form the lineout and just irritate the referee; no doubt he then stores this irritation up to penalise Bath later in the game. Dan Lyle does not seem to be grabbing hold of his players to shake a bit of pride in to them, can you imagine Martin Johnson tolerating the sloppy play we see at Bath in one of his teams? I venture to suggest now that maybe Dan Lyle has had his day and should be one of the players shown the door at the end of the season. The thought of criticising our All-American Hero may be seen as some form of heresy to many of you but unless we start to make some difficult decisions with our players we are going to be enduring the sort of rubbish we saw today for many years to come.

Now I don't want to get on the back of Michael Foley already but I have severe worries that we have appointed yet another untried head coach. Clearly from the results of this weeks poll (see below) many others share my concerns.

Michael Foley has little coaching experience, is he the right man to lead Bath? Yes 28.9% No 44.7% Don't Know 26.3%

Click on to the Leicester Rivals.Net site for their perspective on things.

Have a look at the latest league table.

Other Match played today

Glawster 42 v Sale 14

So what did you think of the Bath players in this game? Give a rating and this will contribute to a cumulative score throughout the season.

Bath Player Ratings Click below to have your vote Vote Now

And what about the performance of the referee? Vote Now to leave your opinion.

Bath scorers
Tries:
Cons:
Pens: Barkley 3
Drop Goal:

Bath
Iain Balshaw, Simon Danielli, Kevin Maggs, Mike Tindall, Tom Voyce, Olly Barkley, Kevin Dalzell, David Barnes, Mark Regan, John Mallett, Steve Borthwick, Danny Grewcock, Gavin Thomas, Nathan Thomas, Dan Lyle