Trailfinders v Saracens: post match-related comment here

It’s still October but already the GP is 1/3 completed which is crazy when you think the final is still almost 8 months away! We now enter an unsatisfactory melee of Premiership cup, European cup and fallow weeks interspersed randomly with the occasional GP tie. Is it any wonder the club game is in trouble. This has been an incredible season so far with lots of high scoring entertaining games but just as the momentum is building nicely it is stopped in its tracks. Is there any other sport that treats its fans quite so badly?

But I digress. It has been ordained that we meet Ealing Trailfinders on Saturday in the revamped Premiership Cup. Gone are the Welsh to be replaced by our very own Championship Clubs (a move I do support). I think the Premiership Cup would be more meaningful if there were actual rules around which players can play rather than a sort of general misunderstanding that it is largely a competition for A team players. Maybe limit the number of players over 23 or with more than 20 first team appearances to a maximum of 5. That way the cup would be a bit more meaningful and would truly be the development competition it aspires to be, whilst also allowing a platform for injured players to get some game time.

Sarries, as we saw on Saturday, are pretty close to bare bones anyway such that many of those who played on Saturday may well be required again next weekend. Hopefully the likes of Carre, Tizard, Van Zyl, and Willis will be off to find some well deserved winter sunshine while their team mates turn out for their respective countries, meanwhile I expect a number of our England internationals will be lacking game time over the next month. This weekend, the likes of Loz and Daly are consigned to water carriers whereas Isiekwe and Dan will be lucky to get 10 minutes off the bench. Meanwhile Jamie, Maro and Ben Earl will likely be flogged to death.

So to Trailfinders. Our season in the Championship gave us a good look at the top club in the next tier, a club with ambition and far more patience than I have. It’s also somewhere that a lot of our Academy have graduated to: Ben Harris, Danny Cutmore & Francis Moore along with familiar names like Nathan Earle and Biyi Alo, late of this parish. So they will all have something to prove! Trailfinders have also recruited Ruben Bird-Tulloch, Tom Collins, Jordan Reid and Mike Willemse so it’s not going to be easy.

Sarries tend to take the Premiership Cup in the true spirit of the competition so hopefully some of our promising youngsters will get a run out. It’s a shame Louie is injured just when he should be showing us what he can do but I guess that’s rugby! Still an opportunity for Phil Brantingham, Samson Adejimi, Nathan Michelow, Harry Wilson, Charlie Bracken and probably a few others to stake their claim! Tim Swiel may well be need to be involved too. Trailfinders will be a stiff challenge for a young, largely Academy Team but it will also be a good learning exercise for them and an interesting watch for us (if we can find a platform showing it!).