London Welsh v Plymouth Preview

Last weekend's Championship fixtures saw all of the top six clubs pick-up victories at the expense of the bottom six, thereby increasing the gap between the top and bottom halves of the league.  Our visitors this weekend, Plymouth Albion, were the only side to gain a losing bonus point, courtesy of their 24-21 defeat at home to Nottingham, a result which moves them up to 9th place in the table.

As we move into the second half of the league season, Albion are only five points adrift of Bristol in 8th, having collected three wins and a draw from their thirteen fixtures to-date.  In theory, they could move out of the relegation places with victory on Sunday, but they would also have to overturn a points differential of 78 points in order to overhaul Paul Hull’s men.  You’d like to think that that would be unlikely, but the Welsh supporters won’t need reminding that Albion picked-up the full five points in their 26-12 win at Old Deer Park last November; nor that their 55-7 win on 2nd December 2006 is our heaviest home defeat in league rugby. That was our eighth league defeat in a row, a sequence which saw Welsh drop into the relegation places after losing at home to Moseley on New Year’s Eve after a run of 11 defeats from 12 games.  Seven wins and 35 points from the final twelve fixtures thankfully saw Martin Jones’ side finish 12th of sixteen teams, 25 points clear of the drop-zone.

This season, however, it is Graham Dawe’s side have been worryingly inconsistent.  Their three wins have come at the expense of Birmingham Solihull (whom they meet again at Brickfields next weekend), at Moseley (where they earned their only try-bonus to-date) and at home to Rotherham, while they were denied victory at Esher only by a last-gasp penalty try which earned our local rivals a 10-10 draw.  They also collected a losing bonus point from a 20-19 home defeat to Bristol which attracted a crowd just shy of 5,000 on a wet Friday night, and also from a 19-26 home defeat to Worcester back in week two.

Since winning promotion in 2002 to what was then National One, Albion have consistently been one of the best-supported clubs in the division.  In their first season at this level they had the second-best average in the league, with what now seems like a paltry 1,892: the best that season was Worcester’s 2,468, while Exeter (still at the County Ground) drew an average of just 1,287.  In the next two years, Albion recorded successive third place finishes, which saw their crowds grow to over 3,200 in 2004-05, and they remained around that level until last year when they dropped by around 25%, falling below 3,000 for the first time in eight years.  A potentially worrying omen for Welsh this weekend is that Albion’s visit of two seasons ago was switched to a Sunday to avoid the televised internationals and attracted a crowd of just 390 people.

The exponential growth in crowds a few years back precipitated the redevelopment of Brickfields into a ground which could potentially withstand the rigours of an audit by Premier Rugby should the need arise – and if anyone can actually determine what those requirements may be.  According to last week’s Rugby Times, Championship clubs were required to submit their plans for a nominated ‘home’ ground should they win promotion by mid-November.  One mischievous Albion fan started a discussion on the Rolling Maul site a few weeks ago about whether the Pirates would consider switching their home games to Plymouth should they prevail come mid-May, but the Rugby Times article revealed that the Cornishmen have graciously declined the offer and actually ruled themselves out of the promotion race for this season.  It would be fascinating to read what plans the London Welsh board have come up with…

The Plymouth fans could be forgiven for cancelling their subscriptions to Rugby Times after the paper tipped them to finish bottom of the Championship this season.  Last season saw them scrape into the promotion play-offs, beating three of the play-off semi-finalists - Welsh, Exeter and Bedford – along the way.  Yet in the latter stages they gained only one victory from their six pool matches, albeit a 19-14 win over the Pirates which earned Devon the local bragging rights.  However, their 57 points in these six games was by far the lowest scoring rate of the twelve clubs, and in the ‘main’ half of the season only the bottom two – Coventry & Birmingham Solihull – scored fewer points.  This season is no better; 220 points and 19 tries from 13 fixtures both represent the lowest return in the Championship thus far.

As we approach the first break in the league season for the British & Irish Cup, Welsh sit in fourth place, eight points clear of Doncaster, but neck-and-neck with the Pirates, whose DoR, Chris Stirling, last week predicted that the top four will continue to break away from the chasing pack over the second half of the first tranche of the Championship season.  Plymouth, meanwhile, are just one point ahead of Moseley and Esher, five adrift of eight-placed Bristol but eight clear of bottom-placed Bees.  And yet, while – on paper – the neutral might predict a comfortable home win, you just can’t write Albion off that easily.  Our nine wins this season have yielded seven try bonuses – only Plymouth and the Pirates have denied us the four tries when we’ve recorded a victory.  And our failure to win in the rain has been well-documented; it looks like this weekend will give us our first opportunity to judge how our brand of running rugby is suited to Arctic conditions.  Who cares about what’s happening in Brisbane…?