Saturday afternoon, six-fifteen, Sarries-Northampton has just finished. I’m sitting in my armchair, thinking, “We’re still top. How did that happen?”
The answer to that is quite easy: winning games is more important to your league position than accruing bonus points. You need an excess of five bonus points over your rival to make up for a deficit of one in the ’W’ column.
And Bath only have an excess of four…
… And, of course, the only two teams that could have gone ahead of us both lost.
So, right now, it doesn’t matter that our average margin of defeat is thirty-eight points, or that we only win – on average – by ten points. It doesn’t matter that I can’t remember a time when the league leaders have had a negative points difference. What matters is the ‘6’ in the ‘win’ column, when nobody else has more than five.
That said, there’s no escaping that this was a dismal performance. I don’t want to dwell on it; whatever the reason – fatigue, didn’t-get-off-the-bus syndrome, who knows? – it was a dreadful result and, combined with the Exeter debacle, suggests that maybe something isn’t clicking this season. Yes, we’ve won six, but they’ve been struggles. Our biggest winning margin – eighteen – came in the last four minutes of the game: it could so easily have been a four-point win.
I’ll take where we are any day of the week but it feels… fragile. As if the rest of the season could go one of two ways: we kick into gear and beat everyone or the wheels come off and we plummet down the league. In truth, I doubt both of those scenarios – we’ll win some and lose some. With luck, we’ll win (many) more than we lose and those we do lose will be tight.
I feel that the next game, at home to Sarries, will give a good indication of where we’re going. Get the result, and I’ll believe we’re back on track because you don’t just fluke a win against Saracens – you have to beat them. A win won’t guarantee getting to the halfway stage on top (unless we get the bonus point, too), but it will open up a healthy gap between us. Also, Bath play Harlequins, so one of those two would also fall behind somewhat.
Honourable mention this week to Asher Opoku-Fordjour in his second Premiership appearance (no, TNT, this wasn’t his debut). To come on and get the better of Joe Marler to such an extent that he, entirely unprompted, gives you a mention in his end-of-match interview is some achievement. Look after this lad, I want to see him and Bev on either side of an England front row, ready to muller anyone who comes at them.
And so to Europe and its deeply bonkers format this year. There are divided opinions on whether to not bother this year and concentrate on the league or go for it because giving up is never healthy and can backfire.
I can see the case for resting players – some of them looked utterly cream-crackered on Friday but I don’t think that means giving up. We can rest Ernie, Rob, Dan and Sharky without necessarily weakening the team very much. I suppose it depends on whether Manu, J-L, Luke, Veianu and similar are fit again (and the state of Bev’s toe). Would Manu and Sam J be a step down from Sam B and Rob? I don’t think so…
So, yeah, I hope we’ll give some needed rest to a few guys who looked out of it and get some others back in the groove. I’m not too worried about progressing in Europe this year (but wouldn’t object if we did), I’m more concerned about getting another trip to Twickers next June.
an old grey dog 