By Whaley Shark
April 7 2013

 So, as the AP season moves to its closing stages, the Fat Lady is, if not actually singing, certainly warming up her vocal cords in her prima donna dressing room.

Last weekend’s 33-all thriller at the Madjeski probably did just enough to make Irish safe, leaving it a straight dogfight between us and London Welsh at the bottom of the table.  The London Welsh player registration mess also appears to have reached a conclusion, costing them 5 points and giving us an 8 point cushion, hopefully sufficient to make the difference between a really nail-biting finale to the season, and seeing us coasting to safety, won’t it? But then this is Sale Sharks, well known for never doing anything the easy way….

Over the next month, Welsh have Saints at home, Irish away and finish off with Worcester at home. While Saints are chasing top 4, you have to admire Welsh’s stubbornness and willingness to fight to the end, and I can’t help feeling they might just give Saints a bloody nose. Irish, almost certainly safe, won’t have much to play for nor, probably, will Worcester, currently 15 points off Heineken Cup rugby next year. If playing Worcester in Oxford is to be London Welsh’s farewell to the Premiership, I am sure they’ll want to go out with a bang. So I think there is a decent chance that Welsh will win two of their last three games, and maybe nick a losing bonus point from Saints. That would give them 27 points; I certainly don’t see Welsh folding up.

We face Gloucester at SCS on Friday, followed by an away trip to Saints, then wind up the season at home to Wasps. You’d think that one win from our last three games would be enough, and it would be nice to do it at home on Friday, but Gloucester will be pushing to secure a top 4 place, so it won’t be straightforward. Saints away will be tough, unless results have made top 4 too difficult for them (ironically, a situation best achieved by Welsh beating Saints and us losing to Gloucester, which is just too horrible to contemplate). Maybe, by the time we get to the last game, Wasps will just be going through the motions, but I really wouldn’t like to get to Round 22 needing to find a win. Even so, I think there’s a fair chance that we’ll only get one win from our last three games, which would be enough to see us safe, but by less than the 5 points we need to avoid embarrassment. So Gloucester on Friday is a biggie, and we’ll need more of the grit we’ve seen over the last few weeks, please.