Bedford v London Welsh - B&I Cup Preview

Just as the Championship season seems to be building-up a head of steam ahead of the ridiculously early conclusion, we break for two more rounds of the British & Irish Cup.  With two teams to qualify for the quarter-finals we’re still in with a chance of progressing, despite the horrific home defeat to Moseley last month, but we need to win either – or  preferably both - of the next two fixtures.

This weekend we visit Bedford, who are currently second in Pool C with four points from their 36-22 win over Ulster.  The Irish province top the pool by virtue of their bonus-point win over Swansea in November, and they visit ODP next Saturday.  There is a question-mark, however, over how seriously Welsh and Bedford will be taking the cup over the coming fortnight.  From our perspective promotion has been our stated aim since the start of the season – RFU audits notwithstanding – whereas the Blues are seemingly happy playing a very high standard at a semi-pro level after the near-disaster of their Premiership escapade in the late-90s.  They have a good record in the old knockout competitions, winning the John Player Cup (28-12 v Rosslyn Park in 1975) and Powergen Shield (14-13 v Plymouth Albion in 2005), and losing in the final of the EDF Energy Trophy (39-23 v Harlequins in 2006), and may feel that, with promotion an unrealistic objective, another cup run would provide just reward for their loyal followers.

Matters for Welsh are further complicated by the rearranged Championship fixture at Rotherham next Wednesday (19th January).  Do we keep our first-choice XV back for the trip to Yorkshire and therefore sacrifice any chances of cup glory?  The Cornish Pirates’ colours were lowered at Clifton Lane last weekend when they fought back from a 12-0 half-time deficit only to lose 19-18, with the home side charging down the conversion of a last-minute penalty try to seal the victory.  That result – along with our 48-12 win over Moseley - saw Welsh move up to third in the table, and if we win our game in hand next week we will overtake Bedford in second place.  The Blues have suffered back-to-back defeats to the Pirates (23-13) and Worcester (33-0) so may be looking at Saturday’s game as a chance to get their season back on-track.

As if the various permutations weren’t convoluted enough, our last four league fixtures include the visit of Bedford on 5th February and a trip to Worcester seven days later, while the Warriors have a chance to avenge their only league defeat of the season thus far when they travel to Penzance on the last weekend of January.  Do we want to keep our powder dry ahead of the league clash with the Blues?  Would we willingly sacrifice a rare victory at Sixways if it meant maintaining an element of surprise in the play-offs?  Since picking-up bonus points in narrow defeats to Bedford and Worcester we’ve rattled-off six consecutive league wins for the first time since 2008, when we finished the 2007-08 season with four victories and started the new season with three further wins.  Not wishing to tempt fate, but that sequence was brought to an end by Bedford, who won 32-23 at ODP in late-September.

Bedford won 19 of the 23 league games that they played in 2010 (excluding play-offs) compared to 18 from 23 for Welsh; we were the two losing semi-finalists in the inaugural play-offs, each finishing second in our respective pools with four wins from six games.  Their average home crowd last season in the main stage of the season was 2,923 – exactly twice the 1,456 who attended the eleven games at ODP.  The Blues’ visit is invariably the biggest attraction of the season, the crowds swelled by the travelling supporters who regularly outnumber the home fans, yet last season’s attendance of 2,240 in the October sun was bettered in thirteen of their fourteen home games across the season.  The cup clash in February – our first in nearly 40 years of cup competitions - coincided with Wales’ Six Nations meeting with Scotland, which undoubtedly contributed to the reduced crowd of 810.  Yet it’s interesting to note that the attendances for our two home matches in last year’s competition (Llanelli drew 1,650) were better than those for our three away games at Moseley (563), Aberavon (712) and Ulster (739), although it should be noted that all three away games were played on Friday nights.

Bedford will be celebrating their 125th anniversary this year, having been formed one year after the Welsh, and they are our oldest rivals outside of London and Wales, the series beginning at Goldington Road on 12th November 1892.  This will be our 108th meeting and the 45th in London since their first visit almost 100 years ago, in November 1911.  In league rugby we’ve now met 23 times – only Coventry and Exeter have been more regular opponents – and Welsh have claimed only five wins, with a single draw in the opening encounter in 1987.  In the cup, of course, we have a 100% record following last year’s 26-13 win, but that’s a record which will be severely tested on Saturday.  In many ways this is a game which has the history of a local derby, one which was scheduled over the New Year holiday in the amateur era and has in recent years in National One taken place over Christmas and Easter.  There’s no animosity – we’re all old traditionalists at heart – but you sense that any win over Bedford means a great deal to the London Welsh support.  Yet given our supposedly grander objectives this season it feels like the cup competition is being belittled somewhat, and that this game has the attraction of a pre-season friendly compared to a potentially season-defining league encounter next month.  Who said professionalism was good for the game?