Galasso knocks out Leota to help Rowell's fight for credibility

The Recreation Ground, one of England's ancient thud-and-blunder venues, experienced the shock of the new at the weekend. Bath took the revolutionary step of crossing the opposition line, not once but twice, while Wasps, such outlaws these days that they should be refereed by a sheriff on horseback, finally kept their penalty count within the bounds of double figures. And then there was the sight of Trevor Leota, the Samoan executioner, finishing a distant second in a head-to-head collision with the equally spherical Alessio Galasso before retiring to the bench with a severe headache and a bruised ego. Leota will need more than a pint of best and a handful of aspirin to live this one down.

When Big Trevor lined up his French opponent, Big Alessio appeared to stand little chance of emerging from the impact with a full complement of body parts. Six days previously in High Wycombe, the Bristol captain, Ross Beattie, had been atomised in similar circumstances, while the supremely athletic Argentinian scrum-half Agustin Pichot had escaped the same fate only by leaping over his would-be assailant, thereby setting a new world's best for the high jump. Yet Galasso, perhaps unaware of Leota's expertise in these matters, simply dipped his shoulder and accelerated into contact in the traditional fashion. When the dust cleared, he was the one on his feet.

But he is no one-act pony, this Galasso. He can scrummage, too. Having had their pips squeezed in the set-pieces for longer than they care to remember, Bath have at last unearthed a prop forward who can take care of business. He was in the ring with a class operator on Saturday – you do not win 60 All Black caps, as Craig Dowd did between 1993 and 2001, without the fullest possible grasp of jungle jurisprudence – but he spent much of the afternoon in control of affairs. Bath will need more than an attacking tight head as they set about reclaiming the credibility they forfeited last season, but it is definitely a start.

Jack Rowell, who maintained an unusually low profile on his competitive return to The Rec as director of rugby after eight years elsewhere, will have noticed one or two other advances. Dan Lyle, for instance. Lyle looked a busted flush last term, a unique talent compromised by the absence of effective nuts-and-bolts players alongside him in the pack and blunted by the burdens of captaining a losing team. The harder he tried, the worse it got; in the end, you could almost hear him asking himself whether the trying was worth the effort. On Saturday, Lyle gave so much that he landed in the sin-bin and cost his side a packet. But he also contributed a fine last-minute try that would, on any other day, have won the game.

During the American's enforced absence, Bath leaked big points and reached the interval 17-6 to the bad; by the end of the third quarter, they were 24-9 down and sailing helplessly towards a 40-pointer that might have caused irreparable damage to their fragile morale. But Lyle's work in the final 20 minutes warmed the cockles and raised the spirits: he ran, he jumped, he tackled, he scavenged, he supported, he flicked wonderful little passes out of the tackle to put colleagues into holes. And when he was given his chance wide on the right, no force on earth – and certainly not Kenny Logan, the hapless Wasps wing – was likely to stop him reaching the line. Logan buried, you might say.

Alex King then dropped a fairly ridiculous long-range goal directly from the re-start to square it at the death and bring the local celebrations to an abrupt conclusion. (To quote Mark Evans, the Harlequins coach: "Draws in rugby are always unsatisfactory, like kissing your sister.") But Bath finished the happier, despite being held on their own territory. Their visitors created more, far more, in the first hour – indeed, contrasting scores from the excellent Josh Lewsey and a penalty try inspired by Rob Howley's scrum-half artistry were scant reward for their obvious superiority – but Bath, kick-started by the midfield aggression of Kevin Maggs and Mike Tindall, were more comfortable during the fast, fluid and gloriously unstructured finale. They may not be able to find their way from A to B, but A to C via Z is still right up their street.

For Wasps, a side capable of having a big say in the major issues of the campaign, this was an opportunity wasted. "After an hour, I was thinking in terms of five points rather than one," admitted their coach, Warren Gatland. "Instead of being three from three, as we should be, we're one and a half from three. How would I describe my mood? I'm averagely dissatisfied." And when Gatland is dissatisfied, players tend to find themselves relegated to the bench.

Having dropped Paul Volley and Richard Birkett for their indiscipline against Bristol the previous week – Gatland recalled Phil Greening in a move to curb an astronomical penalty tally, which was rather like asking Keith Moon to tidy the house – he may be tempted to apply the scalpel once again. Logan will be lucky to hold his place, and if truth be told, the England back-rowers Joe Worsley and Lawrence Dallaglio were less than convincing at The Rec. At this stage of the season, anything is possible. Just ask the Bath supporters, who had waited almost three weeks for a try. Better still, ask Trevor Leota.

Bath: Tries Tindall, Lyle; Conversion Malone; Penalties Malone 5. Wasps: Tries Lewsey 2, Penalty try; Conversions King 3; Penalty King; Drop goal King.

Bath: M Catt; T Voyce, M Tindall, K Maggs, S Danielli; C Malone, G Cooper; D Barnes, J Humphreys (L Mears, 74), A Galasso (J Mallett, 61), A Beattie (A Lloyd, 71), D Grewcock (capt), D Lyle, G Thomas, N Thomas.

Wasps: J Lewsey; S Roiser (P Sampson, h-t), S Abbott, M Denney, K Logan; A King, R Howley; C Dowd (W Green, 52), T Leota (P Volley, 24), D Molloy (Dowd, 62), S Shaw, J Beardshaw (R Birkett, 64), J Worsley, P Greening, L Dallaglio (capt).

Referee: N Whitehouse (Wales).