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2005/6 Pre-season Press Conference: Management Q&A
By Prof September 1 2005
Mark Evans and Dean Richards had both given their statements about the changes in the club both on and off the pitch. The floor was then opened up to questions from the assembled press.

Question (Q): Dean, everyone expects you to get back up, is that a dangerous thing to be thinking of?

Dean Richards (DR): It is dangerous, yes. I suppose when you think of our squad compared to most others then you would expect us to but it’s unknown territory for a lot of our guys. Going up to Pertemps Bees this weekend will be a bit of a shock, a bit of an eye opener, for a lot of the boys. Not only that, it’s not just the facilities, it’s the playing style of a lot of the opposition. We’ll find spaces where we wouldn’t have found spaces before and defensively players will turn up in places we won’t have expected them [chuckles]. Likewise they’ll attack in ways you won’t expect them to attack. It’s not just facilities and styles of play but it’s also the crowd as well. Instead of playing in front of 15 or 16,000 up at Welford Road or 10,000 down at Gloucester or here at Harlequins as we were doing week in week out it’s going to be different, perhaps not one man and his dog but 1,500 or 2,000 people at each stadium that we’ll be going to. I think the crowd will be quite different, the crowd will be right up on us I think they’ll be a lot more vociferous and the whole environment that we’ll be playing in will be totally different. Although everyone is saying it should be easy for us looking at the squad and everything, I think it will be quite difficult – there’ll be a huge culture change for a lot of the people.

 

Q: Mark, is there a feeling that for this club this season is an aberration? Do you consider that you are a Premiership club that has lost its way?

Mark Evans (ME): I like to think that we are set up as close to a Premiership club as possible although we have had to make cuts in staff, but we’ve tried to largely keep them as far away from the playing side as possible. We’re still a pretty big set up on and off the field. Aberration: it happened didn’t it and you’ve just got to deal with it. It will happen to somebody else, it’s a matter of how well or how badly you deal with it.

DR: I actually think that this year is a great year for a lot of the youngsters to grow up and gain a huge amount of experience because we will not be afraid to use the youngsters this year at all. I’m actually quite positive about this year, I really am. Assuming that we do get up, it will help us give a lot of our youngsters the experience and the knowledge that we really want them to have.

Q: Do you think the youngsters will be taught some reasonably hard lessons?

DR: Very much so yes, but lesions that we can take.

 

Q: With respect, which of the sides in ND1 do you really think will make it hard for you?

DR: I think there are a number of sides which will be very difficult to travel to, you only have to look at this weekend at Pertemps Bees everyone has been telling me that it probably the most awful place in the world to travel to as a player. They say that the facilities are particularly difficult, the crowd is going to be right up on us, already having spoken to them up there there will be 2-3,000 right on the touchline which is different to Premiership fixtures these days. I think that at some of these venues it will be quite difficult. All you have to have is two or three guys who are a little bit either unnerved or, dare I say, complacent and for these guys, whose cup final it is, it could make a huge difference.

ME: I agree with Dean, I started my rugby career in grounds not dissimilar to grounds we are going to go to this year. I’ve seen sides turned over at places like that on a regular basis, I don’t think it’s going to be easy for a minute, but let’s also make no mistake that we are geared up for a return in one year and that is what everyone is focused on, not what everyone is assuming, but what everyone is focused on. If we weren’t to return straight away that would pose us a whole new set of difficulties.

 

Q: Mark can I just check on money, which I know is dear to your heart, was there a parachute payment, what is it and how long does it last?

ME: It lasts for a year and I can’t remember exactly how much – being the research based journalist you are Mick I’m sure you’ll be able to find that out. It’s a hit, there’s no doubt about that but we’re stable and we were in a position to be able to absorb it much better than we would have done two, three or four years ago.

 

Q: Can you put a figure on how much you had to cut, you talked about 30-odd per cent as a possible cut prior to the end of the season?

ME: You can look at it in a number of different ways, put it this way, you can look at it in terms of people – the squad is a lot smaller last year it was 36/37 this year I think it is something like 30/31 so the playing budget isn’t as big as last year by a factor of several hundred thousand. On the non-playing side seven or eight people had to be made redundant in different departments.

 

Q: What sort of gate would you be happy with?

ME: We’re delighted with the season tickets but will the match day crowd hold up – we don’t know. We don’t know how many will just pay on the day, last year it was about 4000, we don’t know what it will be this season, we’ve got nothing to go on really. I think we’d be happy if we could average over 5,000 a game actually in the stadium. I do think that it is an unknown quantity – we’ve done 4250 season tickets and about 75% turn up on any given day  so you’ve got about three and a bit there so if we get another couple through the gate on a match by match basis we’ll be pretty pleased. But we may be completely over-egging it or we may be completely under-egging it we really haven’t got anything to go on. But they’ll all get a seat!

 

Q: Mark, have your ideas about ring fencing the Premiership changed?

ME: No. No, nott at all.

Q: But not until next season?

ME: [Smiles] I’m not going to change my mind now, I’ve been saying it for ten years, come on, you know me better than that.

 

Q: Are there many injuries at the moment?

DR: We’ve got a couple, Henry Barratt unfortunately had an ACR repair last week, Mike Brown has broken a finger and we are waiting on Ceri Jones to see whether he’ll be fit for next weekend.

Q: Do you have the team for Saturday?

DR: As I said we are waiting to see about Ceri Jones so I’ll miss out the loose head, so we’ll most likely start with: Jimmy Richards, Ricky Nebbett, Jim Evans, Simon Miall, Andre Vos, Luke Sherriff, Tony Diprose, Steve So’oialo, Andrew Mehrtens, Ugo Monye, Jordan Turner-Hall, Gavin Duffy, George Harder and Tom Williams at fullback.

 

Q: Was it easy to make those decisions - Nick Easter was probably the outstanding player last season and Turner-Hall we don’t know much about?

DR: We’ve got the choice of having playing Will or Jordan and having the luxury of having Will there meant that we could start with Jordan to have a look at him and bring Will on if we’re in trouble. Will’s been on a lions tour, he’s had a busy few months, he’s only just got back so from that point of view we’re just happy to see how things go with Jordan then use Will as and when, especially with all the problems going around about when the Lions should and shouldn’t start. And Nick Easter, this is the side for this week and that doesn’t mean that it will be the side that will be there all year, Nick has impressed us greatly in the build up to this game but it’s a back row that we’ve picked specifically for this weekend.

 

Q: How impressed have you been with Jordan Turner-Hall?

DR: To be honest we have been very impressed with the guys that have come through the Academy we really have. Unfortunately Mike Brown is injured this week with a broken finger and he would have been pushing for a spot as would guys such as Chris Robshaw, Alex Rogers is pushing for a propping position even though he is just 18/19, Charlie Amesbury who can play wing or fullback. There is a crop of these guys coming through the Academy who we are very very impressed with. The beauty about this season is that we can blood some of these guys and give them an opportunity knowing full well that we have the strength in depth on the bench with guys who can come on and save the day if we need to.

 

Q: No Ian Vass in the starting lineup though?

DR: Vassy missed last weekend and Steve played reasonably well so we are quite happy to start with Steve and Steve played part of the game against Bristol and played all of the game against Saracens and played very well so there is no reason why we should start with Vassy instead of Steve but to be honest with you they are different players and you get different benefits from different players so it is horses for courses.

 

Q: How much do you hope that Andrew Mehrtens can bring on Adrian Jarvis?

DR: Hugely so, one of the reasons that Andrew is here is for what other people can learn from him and how much he can offer them as well, that is one of the most important factors. Already the guys are learning huge amounts from him.

 

The next section will be the Q&A session with Vos, Greenwood and Andrew Mehrtens…

 

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