Bath Rugby supporter Glyn Edwards gives his take on events at The Rec...
Up until the last day of February Bath had not lost a game at home in any competition this season, spawning the "fortress Rec" description so beloved by media commentators whenever an undefeated run is put together over a prolonged period.
After Sunday's intensely disappointing failure to reach the LV= Cup final followed the previous weekend's harsh Premiership lesson from Saracens, it may now be more appropriate for supporters to reflect on how well Bath had done to produce such an outstanding record, rather than dwell on its passing.
Like the proverbial London bus, you wait an age for one and then two come along at once – although in this case, despite its inevitable demise, all of us who regularly frequent The Rec had been delighted to postpone the ending of that successful run for as long as possible.
However, rather than grieving too much at these losses the only thing that really matters now is to ensure that the reasons why the two games were lost are absorbed, so that the team turns up at the slightly-belated 'St Patrick's Day party' in Reading in the correct frame of mind to hopefully begin another unbeaten stretch of games.
Just as inevitable, of course, was the ending of Bath's proud record of having never been beaten by Exeter in the professional era. The last loss to the Devonians had been in 1978 at the old County Ground – although that record sounds rather worse for the Chiefs than it actually was, as the teams had only met on 11 occasions since then before last weekend.
Exeter are a well-run Club with a fine team and - given the dubiously fortuitous choice of venue and their vociferous home support at Sandy Park - Sunday's Final might well see them take full advantage of this lack of ground neutrality and seriously trouble their more-fancied visitors from Northampton.
Saints reached the Final by defeating their top of the table Premiership rivals, Saracens, whose followers were soon bemoaning their fate on their own fans' message board, as it was Sarries' fourth successive defeat to Northampton apparently.
It was also their fifth successive semi final defeat (going back to the Premiership semi-final in 2012). "We are becoming the Tim Henman of Premiership rugby," one poster wailed.
But an examination of Bath's record in the penultimate knockout round of competitions might well suggest that, sadly, we deserve that label rather more given our recent history.
Recent memories of Steve Meehan's sides earning the 'nearly men' tag in successive Premiership play-off semi-final defeats against first Wasps and then twice against Leicester have since been followed by three successive LV= Cup failures at the last hurdle before finals days to dampen supporters' spirits.
At least Bath now have further opportunities to pursue their ambitions for silverware this season, with the visit of Brive next month in the Amlin Challenge Cup quarter-final and by still being well-placed in the league to qualify for the play-offs even, as looks highly-likely, having to travel to the East Midlands or North London.
The final word on Bath's Anglo-Welsh cup exploits this year, however, must be reserved for congratulations to Ollie Devoto on receiving the deserved accolade of 2014 LV= Breakthrough Player.
He has certainly put down a considerable marker with the first XV this season, and his rapid emergence as a serious talent has provided the coaches with an extra option in midfield that they may not have expected to have had back in September.
On an even more positive note last Sunday, George Ford finally made his – albeit fleetingly brief - debut for England against Wales at Twickenham, his small contribution following a massively significant one from team-mate Davey Wilson.
It must have pained Warren Gatland so badly to see the "boys" beat his "men".
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