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Saracens lie in wait as the smallest club in the Championship prepare for their toughest season ever
Former Wales outside half Paul Turner has helped take Ampthill from the English rugby backwaters to stand alongside former European champions Saracens in the Championship, and now faces a race against time to get the players ready for the toughest season in the club’s history.
The dramatic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the club at a time when they are formulating plans for a new stadium a mile from their current Bedfordshire home, which could include a 10,000 capacity arena. This ambitious plan would transform a club that has swapped fixtures against Sandbach and Sutton Coldfield for Newcastle and Saracens.
Now, Turner, the head coach at Ampthill, finds his club in a new-look Championship season that sees the 12 teams split into two conferences with 10 home and away matches scheduled to start on March 6. Ampthill and Saracens are in Conference A, which also involves trips to Jersey and Cornwall if a relaxation of the current travel and tier restrictions allows home and away matches to be completed to produce a play-off to find the promoted team.
However, Ampthill will have to wait until January 16 to discover if they will receive the funding from Sport England in the Sport Winter Survival Package which is necessary to cover the £20,000 a month to put their players on the same COVID-19 testing programmes as the Premiership clubs to ensure they can take part in the new season.
Ampthill have the smallest budget and are the smallest club in the Championship and it will be a year since their last match when they finally get this season underway in March.
Their story highlights the very human effects of the pandemic on the second tier of the sport in England and Turner told RugbyPass: “We would have loved to have started on January 24 but we couldn’t afford the testing and six or seven clubs are the same. We should know on January 16 about what funds we will have for testing.
“As a result of the lockdown we had to release a lot of players and then start to rebuild the squad. You put a plan together with an expected start time in September, then January, and now it is March. Our squad has been on furlough and during the period we have only done Stage One training, six against six and no contact.
“We have done about 10 Saturday morning sessions and now with the news we will look to ease our way into Stage Two, which is contact. We are probably the smallest club and others will be different with Saracens and Ealing Trailfinders having played already. We couldn’t afford to do what other clubs have done.
“At the moment we have 25-30 players and I have been talking to Premiership sides about loan players. In the past we have had Ben Earl and Nick Isiekwe with us from Sarries. Once we start testing, you then have the scenario of players possibly moving from one bubble to another.
“We have a really good relationship with Bedford who are in the other conference and we will aim to play some warm up games. We have come through the leagues from National Three and could have a new stadium in the next two years a mile from where we are now.”
Turner’s coaching team at Ampthill includes Mauritz Botha, the former England and Saracens lock who helped coach the German national team in their bid to reach the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
At Ampthill, the famous walk from their dressing rooms through the woods to the first team pitch highlights the very different challenges and scenarios Saracens will encounter in the second tier of the English game.
Turner is hoping Nigel Melville can help solve the “problem child” of English rugby by giving the Championship a viable future.
Melville, the former head of professional rugby at the Rugby Football Union, has been made executive chairman of two important committees at Premiership Rugby – the umbrella organisation for England’s top clubs. The relationship between the top two tiers of English rugby, including the thorny issue of promotion and relegation, will be one of the major headaches Melville has to solve.
Former Saracens CEO Edward Griffiths was tasked with putting a radical plan together for the future of the Championship but that was scrapped and Turner added: “I thought the Edward Griffiths plan was pretty good at the time and we will have to look back in time to see how viable it was. It may have frightened people.
“The two conferences is something that I thought was the way to go this season, with a January start.
“In effect we are – if it was a normal season – in June preparing for a September start and that is how are looking at this season. I have been talking to Premiership sides about loans for players who will be looking for rugby and last year we had five or six for one game.”
Conference A:
Saracens, Cornish Pirates, Ampthill, Jersey Reds, London Scottish, Hartpury University
Conference B:
Ealing Trailfinders, Coventry, Nottingham, Bedford Blues, Doncaster Knights, Richmond
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Comments on RugbyPass
🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
27 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
27 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
27 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
27 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
27 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to comments