By BrianC
April 19 2005

Our last home game of the season is next Sunday against a Bath side that have beaten us on the last five occasions we have met them, home or away.

You have to go back to 10^th April 2002, just before our Powergen Cup win, to last see a London Irish victory over Bath. Not, it has to be said, that the intervening games have been one sided. All our games in the 02/03 and 03/04 seasons were lost by a margin of three points or less. The most heartbreaking of all probably being the momentary lapse of concentration which saw us concede a try with the last play of the game at the Rec exactly a year later. With that try we lost 18 - 15 and found ourselves deep in the relegation mire. Our one meeting this season was at the Rec in late November. Here Bath ran out more comfortable winners, 27 – 15.

As with that infamous match two seasons ago it is again crunch time. There are five clubs in danger of relegation including ourselves. We, Quins and Leeds have two games to play, Worcester and Northampton have one. Given the fact that these two pairs of clubs have to play each other in the run in our position does not look to be quite as parlous as theirs. This is reflected in the bookmakers odds where we are currently the outsiders of the five threatened teams but as everyone reading this knows the bookies do not always call things right.

The late shift in the date of this fixture has meant that some of the plans normally made for this game have gone awry, not least this authors plans to be at the game. There is certainly an end of season party lined up at the Allied Arms, we will have more details on this in the next day or so.

Put simply, our task on Sunday is to win. If we do so, whatever happens elsewhere, we are safe.  Should we fail then it will all come down to the last weekend of the season. Having been through that before, a mere two seasons ago, I’d rather not do so again.