THOUGHTS FROM THE CHRON

FIRST PUBLISHED IN NORTHAMPTON’S

CHRONICLE & ECHO

THURSDAY, 13^th NOVEMBER 2008

So after a couple of weeks rest and recuperation (if such a thing exists under Nick Johnston’s fitness regime) it is back to the coalface for the Saints this weekend and headlong into what could in a small way be a defining game of the season.

It may be relatively early in the season but depending on the final outcome of Sunday’s game down at the Memorial ground against basement club Bristol we could find ourselves in two starkly different positions. A win could see Saints two clear games above the trapdoor to National Division One and nudging that all important sixth place in the Guinness Premiership. A loss could drag us down to within a point of Bristol at the bottom and perhaps back into another dogfight and with games against the other two West Country giants Bath and Gloucester in the following two weeks not an ideal position to be in.

Of course this will not be lost on Bristol who have been in that dogfight from day one. Before the season even started I am sure looked on this fixture against the newly promoted club (Saints) as one of their must win games. It has been no secret that they have used the games in the other competitions in recent weeks purely with an eye on this fixture. I am sure they will be throwing everything at us early on but we go into the game certainly in the better form.

Bristol have yet to record a win this season in the GP, their single win coming in the European Challenge Cup, whilst recent wins over Llanelli, Montpellier and Toulon for the Saints mean we must travel west with some confidence. I am sure however Jim Mallinder and Dorian West will be keeping the players feet firmly on the ground and it will not be a case of pride before a fall and Bristol will be given all due respect of a team fighting for their lives.

As for the outcome well if we can weather that early storm, or perhaps even create one of our own, I think yet again our superior fitness will shine through and come Sunday evening we might well have that bit of a breathing space.

By the time we welcome Bath to the Gardens the following week who knows we might well be looking upwards with an eye on bigger prizes rather than worrying what is happening below.

INTERNATIONALS

A big well done to Dylan Hartley who made his international debut for England on Saturday against the Pacific Islanders at Twickenham. He may well have only got a few minutes but in the pictures I saw this week he looked as proud as punch parading around in his red cap on Saturday evening. As mentor Dorian West said in the press this week it is a shame that Dylan did not get more game time as he would have added an extra dimension to the game but then starting hooker Lee Mears could not be faulted for his efforts. In a way that should be an even greater spur to the young Saints player. The guy in the starting shirt playing well with the youthful protégé on the bench chomping at the bit to replace him. Dylan will surely rise to the challenge and become a better player because of it and not only will England profit, Saints will too.

In the game at Murrayfield our Scottish trio were on the end of clinical, if not totally convincing, lesson by the All Blacks. The downside was a hamstring injury to Sean Lamont, the upside Euan Murray’s display arguably the pick of the Scotland team. Scott Gray also got a late run in the back row and despite the defeat must have been pleased with his effort back on the big stage.

This weekend Scotland will be hoping for better things against a South African side that looked far from convincing in beating Wales while England take on Australia at Twickenham in the Cook Cup. Italy ran Australia close last Saturday in Rome and England must have an eye on the win against the Wallabies. From a Saintly point of view it would be good to see Dylan get more game time and given England are starting with the behemoth props Vickery and Sheridan either side of the smaller Mears we might just get our wish.

DIVISION ONE

While hostilities may have ceased between the Premiership clubs and the RFU (for the time being at least anyway) it seems that the next bout on the RFU’s bill is the National Division One clubs it seems.

When we were in Div One last year I wrote something along the lines of it was several divisions in one. In no particular order at the top there was the Saints, increasingly out on our own, just below those that aspire to GP rugby, the Exeters and Pirates etc, at the bottom three or four clubs that probably yoyo between Div One and Div Two every few years and the lastly what I saw as the problem group the middle men. In a sixteen team division it was all too easy for a club to win a few games then tread water in the middle ground not being threatened by relegation but also not having the resources or in some cases the inclination to strive for the top and all that promotion might entail. In a division of this size it was all too easy for some clubs to happily exist in this way and something had to change to make the division more competitive across the board.

The reduction to a twelve team league is a step in the right direction but the decision to have eight of that twelve in the promotion playoffs is just plain daft.

I have never been much of a fan of playoffs anyway as I thought it only rewards the team that has the best form in May not over the whole season but to have two thirds of your division playing off for the big prize makes you wonder why bother with a league at all? The remaining four playoff for relegation which in theory means that two clubs could end level on points but end up two divisions apart a month later.

That may not be the main sticking point though as far as the existing Div One clubs are concerned. The RFU are insisting that their injection of cash means that the twelve ‘survivors’ all become fully professional full time outfits. That cash injection is sizable but nowhere near enough to run what the RFU are proposing especially when you consider the likes of Coventry and Notttingham already have their backs to the wall. Lets face it we visited some of those clubs last year that normally, outside of their big pay day against us are watched by a couple of hundred people at most making gate revenue minimal. And at the end of the day there are a lot of players in Div One who are quite happy plying their trade on the pitch while still holding down a full time job in the real world. Could full time rugby make up that shortfall in pay, not in a million years at this level and those players would be lost. Nor would clubs want to try and pay those wages, First Division Rugby chairman Geoff Irvine described the whole proposal as “financial suicide” and he has a point.

One worrying view put forward by the RFU this week was that those clubs that did not want to join the ‘Championship’ for whatever reason would be replaced by those from the other lower divisions that did. To me that sounds like franchising by the backdoor and yet again a business decision over a sporting one.

Things do need sorting in Div One but not in this way and I hope sense prevails but then how often do I type those four words and end up disappointed when the RFU have a hand in things?

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