By BrianC
August 31 2005

The endless rounds of word association, Mornington Crescent and oft-repeated jokes start to fade out as our focus shifts to rugby in general and the start of the 2005/6 season in particular.

Many of us have already had a go at predicting how the table will look come the end of the season. Given that, rather than look at individual clubs I thought it would be an idea to look at the overall pattern of the season, some of the changes we will see and at the particular challenge facing London Irish.

In some ways the structure of this season has changed significantly. That said, name change aside, the principal tournament now called the Guinness Premiership remains largely as was. Twelve teams will play each other home and away over 22 rounds. What has been changed is the end of season ‘Championship’. Instead of having the top four teams playing for a place in the Championship final the winner of the league will go through automatically. There they will play the winner of a second/third place play off.

Qualification for the Heineken cup has also been simplified. The places will be awarded on this basis:

• Heineken Cup Winner
• GP first placed
• GP second placed
• GP third placed
• GP fourth placed
• European Challenge Cup winner
• Powergen Cup winner

Perhaps the biggest changes we, as London Irish supporters, will see this season is the structure of the two cup competitions in which we are involved. The Powergen cup has been broadened to include the top four Welsh teams. Rather than a straight knock-out tournament as in previous seasons the opening games are to be played in pools. We have a tough draw, facing Wasps and Saracens in early October and Cardiff at the beginning of December. The pool winners will go through to semi-finals in March.

Like the Powergen Cup, the opening rounds of the European Challenge Cup have changed from a knock-out to a pool based structure. We will be playing Pau, Agen and Parma both home and away. Whilst there will no doubt be a number of our supporters at all these venues it was apparent as soon as the draw was made that Parma in Northern Italy was the tour in which the interest was greatest. From the feedback online it looks like many hundreds of the faithful will be descending on that town in January.

The biggest change we will see on field this season is the introduction of “countdown clocks”. This is a system which will be familiar to those who have followed rugby league or more recent rugby union internationals. Essentially the job of timekeeping is lifted from the referee. Digital clocks will be stationed at each end of the ground. These will be controlled by a fourth official and crucially will stop any time there is an injury or the referee calls for it. Once the forty minutes per half has counted down a horn will sound. Play will continue but only until the next stoppage in at which time the referee will blow his whistle. This change will come as welcome news to many. If memory serves me right, one game last season we had to endure 17 minutes of extra time whilst defending a narrow lead. Hopefully such heart stopping experiences will decrease.

Whilst it could be said of pretty well every season in the professional era I have the feeling that 05/06 is a particularly crucial one for London Irish. In the early part of this decade, particularly the PG Cup winning, HC qualifying 2001/2 season the atmosphere was one of great optimism. It was our then Director of Rugby, Brendan Venter’s, stated aim that when he came to leave London Irish, he would do so with it being one of Europe’s elite clubs. At the time many of us believed this was possible.

In the few years since then such grandiose dreams have faded. Our focus has shifted more to survival in the top flight than aspirations of greatness. As many long standing London Irish supporters may wryly observe, we’re back to situation normal.

If we are to stand any chance of joining the small set of elite clubs that will come to dominate competitions, TV coverage and thus earnings things need to start turning around sooner rather than later. It is perhaps because they have realized this that the LI board have swallowed hard and opened the purse strings this season to allow for significant squad strengthening.

The question on many peoples mind is, will it work? We simply cannot read anything into the pre-season friendlies. From memory we’ve won pretty well every one we have played in the past few years. These have been followed by disappointing seasons.

The answer, as always, lays on the hallowed turf of the Madejski Stadium and eleven other grounds around the country. The responsibility rests on the shoulders of our new Director of Rugby, Brian (Skippy) Smith and with the brave men who will be putting their bodies on the line week in and week out between now and May. To them, and all those unsung heroes in the background, I pass on this Irish blessing:

May the luck of the Irish
Lead to happiest heights
And the highway you travel
Be lined with green lights.

Hold on tight folks, we’re in for quite a ride.