By Glen Leat
December 18 2004

In a week's time many of us will have eaten a succulent turkey and all the trimmings. Today at the Rec we had to mainly feast on a plateful of old tripe supported by a few tasty side dishes as Bath trounced Harlequins 33 - 7 to progress towards the Quarter-finals of the domestic Cup competition.

A meager crowd of 6343 created a flat atmosphere in what used to be one of the highlights of the season - Cup games. These days domestic Cup matches come a very poor third to their European and premiership counterparts. This is a great shame because the Cup has a great tradition and, like the League Cup in football, can provide a relatively easy route through to Twickenham.

Harlequins looked a poor side thoughout the game: totally disorganised, appearing to have little appetite for the game. Had Jeremy Staunton not latched on to a poor Chris Malone pass early in the first half, and ran in under the posts, the visitors would have been shut out. They hardly looked like scoring all afternoon and the most aggression coming from a Londoner was the swinging arm that accompanied a tackle from Will Greenwood on Frikkie Walsh. These two had a bit of a spat throughout the game until Greenwood was removed by his coach. On this form Greenwood should forget the Six Nations for England, let alone grabbing a Lions' spot. Olly Barkley completely outplayed the World Cup winner and has clearly recaptured his kicking form of last season, making some tough place kicks look very easy.

Harlequins may not have looked like scoring but neither did Bath in the first half and I kept thinking that if only Quins could play with better control and as a team, instead of 15 individuals, they could have stayed in the game for longer and perhaps even won it. The score difference does not reflect the greater form or skill levels of Bath. The home side made mistakes just like the visitors but they took their chances. Quins struggled to create any chances to take.

Despite general poor play throughout by both sides the three Bath tries were very exciting. Firstly the excellent Andrew Higgins chased a speculative Malone hoof up-field and sneaked in round the back of the defence. The Quins defenders clearly thought the ball would roll harmlessly dead but it kept going end over end and the Bath winger emerged from the gathering gloom to touch down. Or did he? Doubt has now been placed on the validity of this score by a certain section of the crowd who are claiming they conned the referee in to believing that Higgins touched down when in fact he didn't. Now given this gang have a penchant for the Cheerleaders, there is a distinct possibility they were blinded before the game as a result of buying the Cheerleader Calendar and are therefore mistaken. Now I sit in the opposite side of the ground so can't confirm or deny the score but, as the BBC say it was a try that's good enough for me!

Talking of "emerging from the gloom": I know we are close to the shortest day of the year but did it seem darker than usual at the ground today? I was struggling to see some parts of the opposite side of the field. Maybe it was just a gloomy match. Nevertheless perhaps it's time to invest in some new floodlights though I suppose our worthy neighbour would complain.

Bath's second try came from a great little Lee Mears dash from the edge of the Quin's twenty-two. It was clear from the start that he only had eyes for the line, despite having Higgins outside of him. Mears replaced Humphreys after just 30 minutes and had a good game, chasing all over the place and linking well between forwards and backs.

The final score by Tom Cheeseman came after Brendan Daniel beat his defender on half-way, dashed up-field at some pace and fed the young debutant for what will have been the most exciting moment of his short career. Isn't it great to see our home grown youngsters do well!

Quins stood even less chance of getting anywhere in this match when scrum-half Steve So'oialo was sin-binned for trying to flatten Mike Baxter as he was about to pass from a ruck. 

The referee irritated the crowd with his constant whistle-blowing and this didn't help the pace of the game, however from my position he looked to get most things right. Perhaps the whingers were just fed up with the poor performance from both sides and found it easier to blame the bloke in the middle than their heroes?

The surprise of the round has to be the Glawster victory at Welford Road. Let's hope we avoid the Cherry and Whites and both make it through to another west Country Final: what a day that would be!

Our injury situation gets worse with Beattie and Wood failing late fitness tests, rumour has it that John Connolly will be leaving a message on this site later today asking for anyone with a semblance of fitness (and a pair of boots) to contact him.

Bath: Davis; Higgins, Welsh, Barkley, Daniel; Malone, Baxter; Stevens, Humphreys, Bell; Borthwick, Fidler; Beattie, Lipman, Feaunati
Replacements: Mears, Barnes, Grewcock, Scaysbrook, Alford, Cheeseman, Best.

Harlequins: Williams; James, Greenwood, Deane, Keogh; Staunton; So'oialo; Worsley, Fuga, Jones; Winters, Maling; Easter, Vos (c), Diprose.
Replacements: Tiatia, Dawson, Fitzgerald, Miall, Sherriff, Jarvis, Duffy.

Referee: Nigel Owen