Looking Back Toward the Future....
By baldric
March 25 2006
March 25th 2005. A year ago. Leeds Tykes sat bottom of the (then) Zurich Premiership, looking odds on favourites for the drop. Sounds familiar doesn't it?
Zoom forward a year - past the summer of hope, past the pain of autumn, past the resurgence of belief in the winter months, and right up to date in the spring of... Spring of what? Will it be relief? Or devastation? Or simply acceptance - acceptance that finishing bottom over the course of the season means you deserve to be relegated.
We Yorkshire folk (along with our adopted non-Yorkshire supporters - I'm sure some of our ways must rub off on them) are a pragmatic bunch. If the worst happens, will this be evident? I think so. There's already a groundswell on the messageboard suggesting it wouldn't be the end of the world. The doom and gloom doesn't seem overly evident - in fact, before the Leicester game, I think the Tigers' board seemed gloomier about their position than we about ours. Indeed, some people have pointed out that there would be more 'local derbies', and that some new teams to face would be interesting. And given Paul Caddick's recent comments, well, the future looks bright regardless of which league we're in. We might lose a few players, but hopefully the core of the squad would remain. Besides, Bristol and Harlequins fans are always talking about how 'good' it is in ND1. I'm surprised more teams don't want to drop down!
But am I getting a bit hasty here? We're not relegated yet. There're still five games left. And let's not forget what happened all those months ago. Let's un-zoom back to late March 2005 again and see what happened.
First up were Leicester - beat them. Then Gloucester - beat them too! Next, a bit of a fun break down at Twickenham winning some cup or other, before taking on Harlequins on a rainy Tuesday night. Hey, we beat them as well. And to finish off, a trip down to Bath on a beautiful sunny day and a last gasp win (see, sometimes we win in the last minute too.) And were we relegated? No! We finished eighth. And this time we have five games to play - we could get seventh!
Let’s keep going until the end of the season. And should we find ourselves mathematically unable to avoid the drop, let’s party our way down and look forward to an interesting new challenge next season. And if we stay up… GREAT!!!!!
EDITOR'S NOTE: How about starting as we mean to go on by thumping Wasps?