By BrianC
September 28 2006

The Powergen Cup is no more. We begin our campaign in the newly named EDF Cup next Saturday at home to the Fez Boys, more correctly named Saracens. After the, shall we say, mixed start to our Premiership campaign we could do with a good start to this one. We are in a tough pool.

Last season the cup changed formats. Previously it was a truly English domestic affair with lower division clubs battling for the honour of being thumped by a Premiership team in the latter rounds. In 05/06 it changed to an all professional competition, the 12 GP clubs joined by 4 Welsh ones.

The new format has struggled to catch on. In our case the home crowds for cup home games were significantly lower than our premiership games. For the second season running we are playing the same teams, Saracens, Wasps and Cardiff. This season we only have the one home match, that on Saturday, the other two are away.

It could be argued that what went a good way towards our lack of interest in the Cup last season was the fact that we were pretty well out of it after the first game, a craicer against Wasps which we lost only narrowly. That if we do better against Saracens this weekend we’ll think of this as a much better tournament. We shall see!

Our opponents this Saturday have struggled to make an impact in recent seasons. A team that was always there or thereabouts as the game went professional has only managed a top half Premiership finish twice in the last five seasons, fifth on both occasions. That said, they are always dangerous and difficult to beat with a reputation for having a big, powerful pack.

Thus far this season in the league they have won one, drawn one, lost two. Currently they are ninth with 8 points. Our record against the Fez boys is good in recent seasons. Last year we did the double over them in the league. In December we beat them 19 – 20 at Vicarage Road and in our last game of the season we ran out comfortable 30 – 18 winners. We did however go down 32 - 13 in our cup game with them. That was in fact our only defeat to them in our last six meetings.

Our win in Newcastle last week will have done the boys confidence no harm. Are we at last starting to see it return after a shaky start? Let’s hope so.