Bath Fans Just Can't Help Believing

Is this our Elvis?
By Glen Leat
March 1 2003

If you wondered if dreams come true ask Bath's new recruit, Elvis Seveali'i, as he caught hold of his first pass in a Bath shirt ran at the Saracens defence, chipped ahead and dashed 70 yards to touch down after being on the pitch for less than 60 seconds. They make films about this sort of thing!

The crowd stood, the players cheered (well the Bath ones that is) and Elvis Seveali'i shook his head in disbelief at what had just happened. With ten minutes to go and Bath needing a fourth try to gain a priceless bonus point coach Michael Foley replaced his two-try hero, Simon Danielli, with the recently recruited Samoan and the rest as they say... Bath win 30 - 9 and climb the league table (albeit temporarily) to safety.

Hey this is Roy of the Rovers stuff and didn't we just love it; and given our season to date, didn't we deserve it. Despite several seasons of poor play and disappointing results the fans are still turning up and supporting "their team", unlike supporters from another City not so far away who may lose the team so many have failed to support. And to think we are called "fair weather fans".

Today was like a time warp in several areas, firstly the drummers who did so much to inspire the crowd during our "Allez Bath" season which ended with European Cup glory re-appeared and once again inspired the crowd. Secondly we scored a few tries and thirdly the coaches and players could leave the field with a broad grin on their faces. As Michael Foley told the Press Association after the game, "We stayed very applied and did the simple things well, it was very pleasing. It was a start, I expect the players to be very pleased with the game today but I will be very upset if we slip back from there."

Bath started the game by applying constant pressure to the Saracens defensive line and it was very frustrating as wave upon wave of attack resulted in no tries. In fact it took 20 minutes for Saracens to launch a reasonable attack on the Bath line and they grabbed a penalty to bring the score back to 6-3 following two early Bath penalty conversions. Part of the problem for Bath was the ponderous approach of Chris Malone, he just seemed to be static with every part of his game. At Bath we are used to a fly-half who acts as more than a link between forwards and backs but Malone seemed unable to make any ground and was keen to off-load the ball as quickly as possible.

Simon Danielli has played poorly on many occasions this season but today he was a man inspired, particularly after 28 minutes when he grabbed the ball and ghosted round a clutch of static defenders to score the opening try. Bath fans stood open mouthed thinking "did I see what I saw?" as the winger with no wings all year flew past Saracens. But McD was not finished and at the start of the second half he scored again after Adam Vander fended off would be tacklers to set up a pass for Danielli to run on and score in the corner. Stunning! Why is this the first time Danielli has played in this fashion? Is it the influence of Scotland's coaches? Given the appalling form of Kenny Logan, on this form Danielli could be in the Scotland starting line up (and I never thought I would be wring that this season!).

Bath continued to pressure Saracens, who appeared to have a beach bum and Shane Warne playing in the half back positions. I don't ever remember Andy Goode carrying so much excess weight and on several occasions I expected to see him bowling a flipper at Adam Vander instead of kicking for touch! This pressure again paid off 15 minutes before the end when Kevin Maggs and Lee Mears played "one-two" down the left wing with Maggs finishing off a fine move with a try.

Despite referee Rowden trying to destroy a marvellous Bath spectacle with his nit-picking jokey style of refereeing this was a game to savour and walk home with a glow sufficient to dry out the wet clothes from the rain showers throughout the game.

Could this be the start of something? We have to hope so. Well done Bath, let's have a lot more of the same.

Let's have a look at the latest league table.

So what did you think of the Bath players in this game? Vote by clicking on to here

Scores Bath Tries: Danielli 2, Maggs, Seveali'i Cons: Malone 2 Pens: Malone 2 Saracens Pens: Goode 3

Bath:

15. Matt Perry 14. Simon Danielli 13. Mike Tindall 12. Alex Crockett 11. Kevin Maggs 10. Chris Malone 9. Andy Williams 1. David Barnes 2. Jonathan Humphreys
3. John Mallett 4. Steve Borthwick 5. Danny Grewcock 6. Andy Beattie 7. Adam Vander 8. Nathan Thomas