“Half of Bath’s ten league wins have been by seven points or fewer, which is a correlation of how frugally they score and., considering I make them favourites, Bath to defeat Wasps by 1-12 points looks the angle for me.”

Geoffrey Riddle selects the best bets from this week’s Aviva Premiership fixtures with his main focus Bath’s meeting with Wasps at Twickenham on Saturday

The incident between Andy Powell and a few football fans in a West London bar earlier this week has completely overshadowed the St George’s Day fixture between Wasps and Bath at Twickenham on Saturday.

Wasps are furious at their Wales international hogging the headlines when the focus really should be on the fine charity work both teams are doing for the Armed Forces. It may not sound important from a betting perspective, but taking your eye off the ball ahead of such an important clash often has serious ramifications.

Wasps have named what looks a patched up side anyway. Tom Varndell returns from an ankle ligament injury that was meant to rule him out for the season. Before suffering his injury in February, Varndell had scored six tries in the league and curiously five of those were in the first 40 minutes but he surely cannot be so sharp after such a layoff.

At full-back the High Wycombe club rely on the teenager Elliot Daly. Daly’s performances at England Under-20 level have been sublime – he scored four tries against Italy a few months back – but playing at Twickenham in the Daily Mail Cup is a whole different ball game to lining up opposite Bath.

With Ben Jacobs slotting in at centre after recovering from injury alongside Riki Flutey, Bath will fancy their chances of putting pressure on the Wasps back-three and running their rivals ragged when in possession.

The sun is set to shine in Middlesex and with the expected carnival atmosphere the temptation would be to envisage a repeat of the high-scoring 35-19 scoreline that Bath beat Wasps by in the same fixture last season.

Bath played with a different expectation last season, however, and the decay in the Wasps ranks along with their extensive injury list this season means we could be in for a very different spectacle 12 months later.

Wasps ended a three game losing run with their 51-18 victory over Leeds on Sunday – the first time they have broken the half century mark in the Premiership since 2004. It was a strange result because they have scored the fewest points out of any team above them in the league table other than Bath.

Only Newcastle have scored fewer tries than the West Country club in the league and for a team who have been the very epitome of free-running, off-loading rugby for the past few seasons it is a very sad situation. Perhaps once the delicate matter between Steve Meehan and Sir Ian McGeechan is resolved at the end of the season things will improve at the Rec.

Half of Bath’s ten league wins have been by seven points or fewer, which is a correlation of how frugally they score and., considering I make them favourites, Bath by 1-12 points looks the angle for me.

The other two live games between London Irish and Northampton and Gloucester‘s clash with Saracens at Vicarage Road are heavily dependent on team news.

Gloucester’s victory over Northampton on Tuesday was just another illustration of the fine job Bryan Redpath has done orchestrating a West Country revival. Gloucester could be leading the Premiership, too, if the Cherry and Whites had not lost to the bottom four teams, a glaring and disgraceful statistic.

Still, at the business end, Gloucester have won four and drawn one of their meetings against their rivals in the top four which bodes well for their visit to Watford, where they have won on five of their last eight visits. With eight successive victories in the ledger though, Sarries are on their best run in Premiership history and although we were unlucky last week backing against Gloucester, I think the home side will just edge the contest and should be backed to win by 1-12 points.

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