Season-saver?

By Leipziger
May 1 2011

It's a sad indictment of how poor the Premiership's two northern-most teams have performed in the league this season that in April we've had four home matches, lost them all, but got three losing bonus points and a) that should keep us up now and b) the latter two of those a lot of us have been quite happy with.

After the Falcons did their best to throw away even a losing bonus point, Luke Fielden's late score lifted us one point above Leeds and ensures that the Cardies need at least two points at Northampton to have any chance of overtaking us. It's highly unlikely they'll get them.

So since I was feeling like death all day yesterday, and as we got on the bus to Tesco Ma Leipy's hip started playing up, we hit Boots in KP for some painkillers before the match. I saw another bloke in a Falcons shirt in the same aisle also picking up some Paracetamol, and thought to myself “Is this what it's come to, we need drugs to get us through the match?”

The Falcons were boosted by the return of captain James Hudson while Tane Tu'ipulotu and Gcobani Bobo started on their KP swansongs, and Jeremy Manning was back on the bench. Bath's Matt Banahan was a late withdrawal, leaving them with a midfield axis of Butch James and Sam Vesty, and I thought Vesty was one of the best players on the park during the game.

Butch James and Jimmy Gopperth missed their first penalties in a scoreless first quarter, but the Falcons probed with Alex Tait making some good runs, and there were chances to score but Bath's defence held out. Gopperth finally put us ahead with a penalty but Bath immediately drove forward and though their forwards couldn't find a way through, Michael Claasens sniped through a gap for an unconverted try.

Gopperth and James exchanged penalties and their teams the lead heading towards half-time, 6-8 not being a bad scoreline considering Bath had taken control of the game following the Falcons' early attacks. It helps when you can block tacklers at will and repeatedly dive over the ball with impunity, but of course the Falcons are not whiter than white, we just don't see their offences ;-).

There is always the nagging feeling that when the Falcons have played well, or at least competed in the first half and gone into the break either ahead or in touch, that we'll collapse in the second 40. That didn't really happen yesterday but that was because of an excellent defence and Bath being unable to capitalise on their huge dominance after the interval.

Perhaps someone will correct me but I would be surprised if we got into Bath's 22 until the final ten minutes – a penalty from Gopperth sent to the corner missed touch and even though Jacques Boussuge fumbled, it didn't matter because no Falcons bothered to chase the ball in case of that eventuality. Can someone tell me what can go so wrong if you chase a kick? Put pressure on the guy and try to force another mistake, it's not exactly thinking on the level of Greek philosophy.

Anyway, Vesty and James added further penalties for Bath, I can't remember exactly why but I remember thinking that possibly the second one was for something extremely stupid on the part of one of our players. Eight points down, the season now hung in the balance with one game left.

However Tu'ipulotu made a break and raced into the Bath half. Now I'm always happy to admit when I'm wrong, and I was horrified when Tulip decided to dribble the ball towards the tryline, as normally he kicks about as well as Matt Thompson. However, Fielden roared towards the ball and 100% definitely just touched it down before Nick Abendanon could get to it, sending the South Stand absolutely wild!

Gopperth's conversion hit the post, meaning a draw was now probably the best we could hope for, but with Bath attacking and the ball in our 22 as the clock hit zero, the Falcons did the sensible thing and kicked for touch to keep the priceless bonus point safe. Yes, four points would have been better than one, but was it worth risking that one to perhaps get another three? If you'd had to put your house on another team scoring, would any of us have put it on the Falcons?

So we are now one point ahead of Leeds, with a much better points difference, meaning that when they visit Northampton have to get at least two points more than we do at Bath next week. With the Saints looking to avoid Leicester in the play-offs and maybe playing for Heineken Cup Final places, if Leeds win there then they deserve to overhaul us. I can't see it but at Bath on Saturday I'll no doubt be getting other fans to check their iPhones and Blackberries every few minutes.

After the match Gopperth was presented with the Supporters Club's player of the season award, a totally deserved honour. I firmly believe that if we do go down the players that take us down should bring us back up, but in The Wizard's case I might make an exception as without him we'd probably have lost hope of survival a long time ago. Andrew van der Heijden was the latest player of the month and was also a deserved man of the match.

Unless Leeds pull off probably one of the biggest upsets in Premiership history on Saturday, the Falcons live to fight in the Premiership for a 15^th consecutive season. While I hope we'll win the league in a year's time, the reality of the past six weeks suggests we'll probably be fighting for our lives again come April 2012. But I'm sure we'd all prefer that to negotiating the Championship play-offs.