The 2008 tournament winners, who claimed Heineken Cup glory a decade earlier, will hope that a bonus-point success against Mogliano is preceded by a Bordeaux-Begles win over Newport Gwent Dragons. Those two results would see them cement their place at the top of Pool 2 and take the potential sting out of their Round 5 trip to Wales.

Bath have begun their latest continental campaign with a fine 15-8 win at Bordeaux, a 26-10 victory over the Dragons and a comfortable 55-8 triumph over Mogliano and it would be a huge surprise if we did not see more of the same on Saturday.

The home side are on a run of nine straight wins in all competitions and had few difficulties seeing off Mogliano at the Stadio Comunale Maurizio Quaggia in Round 3. Bath scored nine tries, with Richard Lane grabbing a hat-trick, despite resting a number of big names.

Scrum-half Peter Stringer, who was twice a Heineken Cup winner with Munster, is in line for his 100th appearance in European competition but Bath have had to deal with a shake up in their coaching hierarchy since returning from Italy.

Director of rugby Gary Gold has left the club with immediate effect and the players will no doubt want to ensure that all the talk after the weekend is about what happens on the pitch rather than on what has gone on off it.

Mogliano will travel more in hope than expectation, hope that they can give a positive account of themselves and avoid a demoralising scoreline prior to the final two pool games next month. They are yet to pick up a point in a season-and-a-half of European competition but were competitive for large chunks of their last away trip before shipping seven tries against the Dragons in October.