By The Analyst
August 21 2002

Not too shabby a season at Pooh Corner, the home of the Tigger. Just the 4th successive ZP title, and a second Heineken Cup, won in typically pragmatic East Midlands style against the sentimental favourites Munster, who filled the Millennium Stadium with red but ended up as bridesmaids yet again. The league was won with amazing ease, no other team coming remotely close to extending them, and the pussies' foot was off the gas long before the end,so the margin could have been more.

When you consider that this came after a Lions tour where they contributed heavily ( if you're on Johnners' list of phone no's, you get a Lions cap even if you weren't selected , as dear old Welshman Nobby West discovered). The depth of their squad and the durability of some senior members becomes apparent yet Llanelli, Munster and even Bristol showed that there are ways to compete with them. A lot of the ZP teams should be feeling they failed to give the champions a hard enough game last year.

Llanelli, in particular attacked their set piece, focusing on the tight head and the front of the lineout, and drove the fringes off the front foot to some effect, so much so that had they, not T****s , kept plugging forward at the end of their semi, T****s would not have made the final.

A debatable scrummage penalty in favour of the scrum under pressure, a stolen metre at the penalty and a monumental kick which crawled over the crossbar like a drunk walking a tightrope, and the T****s season was made.

The point is, that in the crunch they won and Llanelli didn't ,and likewise against Munster. Winning breeds winning and knowing you've done it before gives the confidence of knowing you can do it again when crunch time comes around.

Their training environment is more competitive than any other European team. there is only a lease on any T****s shirt, and players will be let go unsentimentally when their day is done. They play in front of bigger crowds and are under more pressure for their places than other teams. They may have iconic figures scattered around the team, but the winning habit will be the most difficult obstacle for any challengers.

Together with the fact that they are a very difficult team to coach against, as they have few weak points. Traditionaly, the counterpoint of this is normally that other teams raise their game against the champion side, but truth to tell, very few teams did that last year.

TRANSFERS
Out go the popular (?) Cockerill , to Montferrand (mon dieu ), plus Naylor and Manson-Bishop , Paul Gustard has gone to London Irish, Andy Goode to Sarries and James Grindall to Falcons

In come some prop who does a good imitation of Diarmuid Gavin ( Franck Tournaire with a dodgy hairstyle apparently) ,Tom Tierney, an Irish international 9, Gareth Raynor, a league winger rumoured to be the next Billy Whizz ,and 2 new hookers, a guy called Williams from Wales and James Buckland the England U-21 incumbent from Saints.

About 5 or 6 from the academy are getting contracts, notably Sam Vesty, a hot prospect at 10, and Adam Billig, who can play any back position to some effect

MANAGEMENT
Quite simply, the best there is on track record. No sugar daddies, the supporters basically own the club. With the odd backs coach from abroad and a league defence coach, the coaching is English and more particularly L*******r.

The tradition of good coaching goes back about 3 generations now to Chalky White, and people who were coached by him are now coaching the top teams and they in turn are already preparing their successors who are coaching the junior groups.

In recruitment, they have long dominated the West Midlands catchment area in addition to Nottingham and L*******r. In short, this is a very broad based, well-organised outfit and to catch them other clubs will have to be prepared to match them, as they are designed to last, unlike perhaps their predecessors at Bath.

Beano may not get his hands too dirty with the coaching but he and John Wells are joined at the hip, and the combination of Wells' astute coaching and Beano's instinct for a game and sheer ability to move people in the direction he wants , is formidable.

PROSPECTS
At the moment, the other teams seem too far behind to really challenge them this year. This may well be true, but the league should be much closer. Back , Johnson, Rowntree, West, Corry, Kay, Little Austin and Moody as well as Stimpson , Murphy and possibly Booth & Ollie Smith will all be facing a RWC at season's end.

In the case of the first 5, their positions would seem to be under threat according to Woodentop. Some would say that Back may even now have been relegated to bench material, ironically by teammate Moody.

Their focus is bound to be deflected- it is different from shutting out the memory of a tour that has finished, harder to avoid thought of a RWC looming large. There is a sense that London Irish, Gloucester, Wasps and some others may fancy their chances this term, and they must realise that to make it stick they must actually take points off the champions.

So maybe not so many easy games either. Whatever, anyone who beats them will have to play 85 minutes of good rugby. Their defence is constricting, by far the most effective in the ZP, and if you give them midfield targets they will slow you down until they get a double-hit in , then turn you over.

They will aim to dominate the yard around the collisions in attack and defence and their possession skills run right through the team. It's not new and it's not rocket science, but by god it works . They are the supreme apostles of the idea that it's not what you do, but how well you do it, that counts.

There are the weaknesses mentioned above although Tournaire should shore up the scrum. Healey is not a natural 10 and finds it hard to control the game as well as communicate with his backs as he tends to stand deep while they are playing flat but as he showed in the Millenium Stadium, he can still turn the game his team's way.

The placekicking is one player deep. With Stimpson it's devastating, without him it's an unknown quantity. Expect teams to learn from Australia, Llanelli and Ireland and try to put a big guy on Back to take him out of the game (legally) - but they still have Moody or Kronfeld (who certainly ought to be fresh after last year).

Looking at their Squad, and with the RWC in mind, this may be the best chance of someone else winning the League for some time as several careers are in their twilight. The Pooh Corner faithful, for instance , are worried there may be a weakness at Lock. (amazing, when you consider their first choice pair are the current England starters , and Deacon is in the mix for the England A spot , while Peter Short is not far behind ).

But ideally any challenger would have got close to them last year and would have that experience to draw on. Gloucester will believe they have the weapons, Wasps will feel they are prepared to front up to their forwards, maybe LI will have enough in defence ,attitude and street smartedness but it would still be against the odds for any other team , including those three, to make up all that ground in one year rather than two years.

I say this through gritted teeth, but I predict first place again but I an certainly not so sure about another Heineken triumph.