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Simmering relegation battle again proves to be most compelling element of the Premiership

By Alex Shaw
(Photo by Malcolm Couzens/Getty Images)

It may not be the most enjoyable experience for the fans of the clubs currently engaging in it, but for the second year in a row, the relegation battle at the bottom of the Gallagher Premiership is proving to be a salivating spectacle.

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Even though Saracens currently sit in 12th with minus seven points and are a sizable 18 points off of safety, few are countenancing their possible relegation. Their form, strength of squad and past seasons’ points totals all suggest that they will find themselves clear of the danger come the end of the season.

Premiership relegation battle
Jonny May crosses the try line in a vital win for Tigers against Bristol Bears. (Getty Images)

That leaves what looks to be shaping up as a three-horse race to avoid the drop at the bottom, although there is still plenty of time for further teams to be added to that mix, as the Premiership clubs, outside of Saracens, Exeter Chiefs and Northampton Saints, struggle for consistent wins in what has become a fascinatingly competitive tournament.

As stands, the three teams in the mix are Leicester Tigers, Wasps and London Irish. Tigers have just 11 points after eight rounds of rugby, and that’s only due to the bonus point win over Bristol Bears this past weekend, whilst both Wasps and London Irish lost at home to the high-flying pair of Northampton and Exeter respectively.

If Leicester can use that win over Bristol as a catalyst for improved fortunes, or perhaps it was the draw that was earned at Twickenham the week previous that was the real turning point, then the relegation battle could well surpass the title race as the most exciting facet of this season.

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Watch: Michael Fatialofa remains in specialist hospital following injury

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The back row is beginning to fire as Jordan Taufua settles in, something which will only be compounded when the club can get Hanro Liebenberg in there alongside him, and Telusa Veainu is beginning to show flashes of the pre-injury form that had him labelled as one of the most compelling watches in the competition.

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Perhaps the key element to that win, however, was the form of the club’s contingent of England internationals. Jonny May, Ellis Genge, Ben Youngs, George Ford and Dan Cole all looked effective and up for the fight, and that quintet make up such a vital core of the Leicester squad that Geordan Murphy will need all five of them to be firing for the remainder of the season if he is to safely navigate Tigers away from the bottom.

It would be a shame to see such an iconic club as Leicester relegated, though the same was said of Harlequins and Northampton not too long ago, and both of those sides came back better after an eye-opening stint in the Greene King IPA Championship. If Leicester continue to play like they did against Bristol, that is very unlikely to be the case come May.

Then there’s Wasps, who for all money looked as though they might give themselves some welcome breathing room on Sunday, only for a late Taqele Naiyaravoro try to sink them at the Ricoh Arena. With Northampton having been reduced to 13 men in the dying minutes and Wasps enjoying the lead on the scoreboard, it was representative of their season.

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Having lost a number of key players in the summer, the club has struggled to replicate their performances on the pitch with those of the players that were signed to fill the void. The return of Jimmy Gopperth certainly promises hope and his class was evident on Sunday, even as the Coventry-based outfit fell to their sixth defeat of the young Premiership season.

The club have a real battle on their hands for the remainder of this campaign, as their high turnover in playing personnel in recent seasons certainly seems to have hindered them. The last time Wasps were threatened with relegation, they turned to young talents such as Elliot Daly, Christian Wade and Billy Vunipola for salvation, so it will be interesting to see how much the likes of Tom Willis, Alfie Barbeary and Will Porter are used, as the club seeks to form a new core of homegrown senior players.

Finally, we come to Irish. After an extremely bright start to the season, the Exiles’ fortunes have diminished of late and the defeat to Exeter is their third-straight loss in the competition. One of the preseason favourites for the drop, Irish now truly find themselves in the scrap for survival.

The 36-11 win over Leicester in November is beginning to feel a long time ago for Irish fans and Tigers currently sit just two points behind the London side. Having reportedly discarded the EQP quota this season in order to field as strong a squad as possible and push for survival, there will be concern at the diminishing return in results that they have been able to produce over the last two months.

It was always going to be a challenge for Irish to stay up, despite the heavy investment they made in the playing squad over the summer, and the sooner they can get Waisake Naholo and Ben Loader back together and in the starting XV, the better off they’ll be. Just as Vereniki Goneva and Sinoti Sinoti previously did for Newcastle Falcons, and Josh Adams and Bryce Heem provided for Worcester Warriors, the presence of two clinical wingers can do wonders for turning around an ailing team’s performances.

There is a significant ’10-pointer’ coming up in February, as Leicester, shorn of their England internationals, host Wasps at Welford Road. Two rounds later, Irish also host Wasps, as the Guinness Six Nations period is shaping up to be very influential in ultimately deciding who faces the drop at the season’s end.

That all said, Worcester’s 62-5 humbling at the hands of Saracens this weekend will do them no good at all and it would not be surprising to see the West Midlands club sucked into the contest. Saracens away is arguably the toughest fixture they will face all season, although that was a defeat, not only on the scoreboard but also in the contrast of ability on the pitch, that was monumentally stark.

Quins and Bath are coming off of a couple of rounds of below par performances and results and now look possibilities to slide back, though prior to Round 7 they had been beginning to put together some momentum and points.

From there on up, teams begin to look a lot safer. Bristol Bears will not suffer through the international call-ups in the Six Nations that a number of other teams will and the same is true of Gloucester and Sale Sharks. Exeter and Northampton aren’t in the conversation, as their domestic fortunes continue to prosper in the absence of Saracens in the upper echelons of the table.

It would be a shame if in the seasons to come this element of the Premiership were removed from the league, with renewed calls for ringfencing following the investment by CVC Capital Partners. For all the travails faced by the Guinness PRO14, the desire to remove relegation from the Premiership, thus eradicating one of the few things that truly separates the two competitions, seems an odd move.

There’s no getting away from how dull the second half of the Super Rugby season can become, either, especially in the bottom half of the log where teams are scrapping it out for nothing more than pride.

As stands, the relegation battle is putting bums on seats in stadiums and gluing eyes to BT Sport, as fans of the competition are once again treated to a delightfully difficult to call contest at the bottom of the table, with real consequences and challenges for the team that ultimately loses it.

This is what makes the Premiership and the Top 14 the enviable competitions that they are.

Watch: Life After Rugby – Andy Powell

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J
Jon 7 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 10 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

39 Go to comments
A
Adrian 11 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

39 Go to comments
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