By Glen Leat
May 23 2003

Bath fans will travel to the Madejski Stadium on Sunday hoping their team can ensure Bath becomes the first club in rugby history to win both European trophies. Given the disappointing campaign so far this is not a bad note on which to end the season!

What a weekend I have in store: travel down to Torquay for a couple of days on my annual skittles team "lad's week-end", travel back on Sunday morning to pick up the family and drive on to Reading for a Cup Final with a Bank Holiday Monday to aid the recovery - life really ain't so bad!

Someone said to me the other day, "It's a Cup Final but not a real one is it!". Hey, it may be the second string Cup Final in Europe but I'd rather be in it than not and we Bath fans, with a regular diet of Cup finals over the past 20 years need these days out to make the bad times disappear, even if only for a few hours. I'm sure that both the Bath and Wasps players are not thinking to themselves, "I'm not that bothered about Sunday because it's only a junior trophy".

Wasps are red hot favourites with the bookies and the Wasps fans and this should not be surprising given that it is the second from the top of the League playing second from bottom, but this is a Cup competition and anything can happen in the Cup. Looking at the results of our website survey it is clear that you cannot decide who will win with both sides earning themselves 49% of the vote.

Fortunately for us, Warren Gatland did us a real favour earlier in the week when he commented that Bath did not deserve to be in the final; no doubt that comment will be blown up on a large sheet of paper and shown to the Bath players just as they leave to go on to the pitch. It's probably worth mentioning to Mr Gatland that we have already played his boys in a Cup competition at his place this year and again we were underdogs but managed to walk away with the spoils. Whilst Wasps have been in fantastic form in the second half of the year we can draw strength from our performances against Newcastle, Saracens and London Irish over recent weeks.

Bath's Cup history is second to none but we will win nothing this year if we don't stick to certain traditions. For one I will be taking the lucky gloves with me; these are the gloves which helped Barnsey drop that famous goal against Quins and encouraged Neil Back to push Lander over amongst other things. However we will be in real trouble if Jack Rowell is still in the stadium with five minutes to go; Jack has a history of having to nip outside the ground in the dying moments because Bath rarely have tied up the game until the last kick and pass so if you see him in the ground towards the end of the game shout "Get outside Jack or we'll lose!". If you have a Cup Final tradition make sure you stick to it!

Despite the return to fitness of Matt Perry and Mike Catt the Bath coaches will be reluctant to change a winning side and so these England internationals may have to start on the bench. The injury to Nathan Thomas means he has already played his last game and so there will be a slight reshuffle in the forwards with Andy Beattie moving to the back row alongside Dan Lyle and Gavin Thomas.

Probable Line Up

Backs: Iain Balshaw, Tom Voyce, Kevin Maggs, Mike Tindall, Elvis Seveali’i, Olly Barkley, Gareth Cooper.

Forwards: David Barnes, Jonathan Humphreys, John Mallett, Steve Borthwick, Danny Grewcock, Andy Beattie, Dan Lyle, Gavin Thomas, .

Question: Will Bath Beat Wasps? Yes 49% No 49% Don't Know 2%

Click on to the Wasps site for their perspective on things.