London Welsh v Nottingham - Play-Off Preview

After six months, 132 games, 705 tries – including 77 try bonuses - and 6312 points, before a grand total of 284,212 paying spectators, the Championship this week starts afresh.  For London Welsh this means renewing acquaintances with Worcester, Nottingham and Bristol, all of whom have beaten us in the last two months as, in the words of the club’s official website: now it starts to get serious! 

First up are Nottingham, who beat us 22-13 at ODP on the final weekend of part one of the season.  The Green & Whites matched last season’s fifth-place finish, and will travel down the M1 in confident mood, not only because of their recent success but because in the corresponding play-off fixture last season they recorded a comfortable 29-12 win, complete with try bonus.  That was the last time we conceded the full five points in a home league fixture, although Bedford did score four tries in their three-point defeat last month.  Despite finishing one place behind Welsh, Nottingham scored more tries and points than us, and with 16 bonus points (11 try bonuses, five losing) they ended up only four points behind us even though they won twelve games to our fourteen.

Many coaches have been quoted in the rugby press in recent weeks talking about the importance of reaching the play-offs in a rich vein of form, of hitting the ground running.  In that respect, they couldn’t really have come at a worse time for Welsh.  We’ve lost four of our last five fixtures – the aforementioned defeats to our three play-off rivals being preceded by a 29-13 loss at Rotherham – and of the twelve Championship clubs only Moseley have collected fewer points from their last six games: Welsh and Bees have gathered just 10 from a possible 30, and Moseley nine, compared to 16 for our relegation-threatened neighbours, Esher.  Worcester, on the other hand, have collected 29 points in that time, their failure to score four tries at Birmingham Solihull on the final weekend bringing to an end a run of 10 consecutive bonus point wins.  And having finished last season 30 points adrift of Bristol, with 14 wins and a draw from 22 games, it’s disappointing that 14 wins this term have seen us finish 33 points behind Worcester, although, in mitigation, Worcester have had a fairly trouble-free stroll to the top spot, unlike Bristol, who were pushed every inch of the way by their eventual conquerors, Exeter.  On the plus side, Josh finished part one of the campaign as the division’s joint-top try-scorer, his 14 touchdowns being matched by fellow wingers Matty Williams (Doncaster) and Worcester’s Marcel Garvey and Miles Benjamin, while our record of 37 tries conceded was bettered only by Pirates (34) and Bedford (35).

The play-off format is the same as the Heineken Cup, in the respect that four teams in each pool play each other home-and-away.  It’s often been said that to progress in Europe a team must win all of its home games, beat the weakest opponent (invariably the Italians, Scots or the Dragons) away from home, and collect at least a losing bonus point from the remaining away ties.  The problem with that theory is that there doesn’t appear to be a truly weak team in Pool A, although results in our pool last season – also containing Nottingham, Exeter and Doncaster – showed absolutely no trend of form or logic.  Exeter lost at both Nottingham and our adopted home at Esher; we were thrashed at home by Nottingham but won at Meadow Lane a week later; while the Green & Whites contrived to lose twice to Doncaster, thereby collecting just the one home win, and that against the Chiefs.  One new development this season – and one which distinguishes this competition from any other – is the points brought-forward from stage one; the top seeds (Worcester and Bedford) each start on three points, the second seeds (Welsh and Pirates) on two, and the third seeds (Nottingham and Doncaster) one.  The top two seeds also enjoy the advantage of alternate home-and-away fixtures, although we finish with a trip to Nottingham on 16^th April, meaning that both stage one and stage two of our season open and close with meetings with Glenn Delaney’s side.

This Saturday’s game is being broadcast live by Sky, the first time that a league or cup game has been broadcast live from ODP – although our B&I Cup match with Swansea, originally scheduled for 18^th December, was to be televised by S4C.  The fixtures which have been shown to-date – including our game at Bedford at the start of October – have generally been deemed to show the Championship in a good light, although we should perhaps gloss-over the fact that both of our televised games in the last year – the other was the play-off semi-final at Bristol last May – have ended in defeat.  What the TV audience will make of our picturesque corner of South West London is anyone’s guess, and it’s worth remembering that our rivals in Pool A are the only three clubs in the Championship playing in stadia which are believed to fulfil the strict criteria for promotion to the Premiership.  Unfortunately, as one long-standing supporter has discovered after banging his head against countless brick walls, the criteria are not freely available to be reviewed by the paying punter, and none of the twelve clubs seems willing to admit that they’ve even submitted an application for consideration.  At the start of the season John Taylor suggested to Rugby Times that the terms & conditions for promotion were not set in stone, and that there may be the possibility of a year’s grace for a club which won the play-offs but was not in a position to fulfil all of the criteria immediately.  That may or may not be the case, but first of all we need to concentrate on on-field matters, and getting out of the ‘Pool of Death’ (every competition has to have one – it’s mandatory).  Now it starts to get serious!