Will it be all over before the Hill arrives?

Bristol finally completed the signing of their long term target - All Black fly-half David Hill – in the middle of last month. He will arrive at the club at the beginning of November.

Interestingly, in this site’s summer poll fly-half was the overwhelming favourite, at 42%, for recruitment, which just goes to show what excellent judges you all are. Oddly this doesn’t seem to be a reflection of any real dissatisfaction with the current first choice Jason Strange (we’ve had some fly-halves who worried me whenever they got the ball or attempted a penalty kick). Rather it seems to reflect genuine respect for a player who was the league’s highest points scorer, acknowledging that he performed to a higher standard than when he last played in the Premiership. However, there was also a feeling that we needed something more than a reliable place-kicker and wholehearted performer.

Is David Hill the man to provide this extra spark? From the little I’ve seen of him I would say “yes”, but with one big question mark – will he arrive too late?

By the end of October last season Leeds , with Justin Marshall, had already lost five matches, that’s nearly a quarter of the season gone. Admittedly they went on to lose even more in November, but in the same period we had won two games and even been top of the league. Arguably, it was our good start with both wins and losing bonus points in this first quarter of the season that saw us ultimately retain our Premiership status.

Good player though he is, we need to ensure that David Hill doesn’t arrive to find us in a similar position to that of Leeds last time around.