Preview of Sarries' visit to Headingley Carnegie
By TonyTaff
April 5 2006
Leeds Tykes approach this weekend's game against Saracens as a must-win, whereas Sarries see it as an opportunity to banish relegation worries.
The forthcoming fixture is laced with déjà vu. In week 18 last season, Leeds lost away to Wasps and were marooned at the foot of the table, though not as far adrift as they are now. Sarries were not safe from relegation, but in their wildest dreams, Heineken Cup (HC) qualification was still possible.
Both the teams prospered in the final weeks, last term, though they did not need to face one another. Leeds, playing an expansive game that surprised their opponents and confounded many pundits, won all their last four fixtures, picking up 17 points, to finish eighth. Sarries, adopting a gritty game-plan, clawed their way to a home fixture in the play-offs, culminating in a wild-card into the HC.
Will things be different this time? Probably yes. Leeds, trailing Bristol by 11, and Friday’s opponents by 12, can once again not afford to lose a game. However, even a 17 point haul may not save them, as they would need one of their rivals to implode in Quins-esque manner. Sarries, now looking hopefully up the table following two impressive wins, find that the endless tinkering with competition structures has left them with an even more remote chance of HC qualification than last term. The abolition of the wild-card play-offs has placed greater emphasis on league position as a determinant of entry; whilst the restructuring of the early stages of Europe’s second-tier club competition into a league format has enabled English clubs to outperform their less consistent French counterparts, thereby increasing the probability that an English club (which has not otherwise qualified for the HC) will win and garner the HC place that would otherwise be granted to the 6th placed GP team (7th if, improbably, Bath win the HC and finish 6th or above).
Enough of the conjecture. If the Leeds players do not try their hearts out on Friday, they should be shot, whilst if not summary execution, an Australian Court-Martial awaits any under-performing Saracen.
Saracens will find their travelling support depleted by a late change of date, from Sunday afternoon to the more inconvenient Friday night – who knows? Timofe might find himself outnumbering the visiting drummers, for a change. The press release attributed the change to a wish not to clash with the Powergen Cup final to be played on Sunday, and televised on terrestrial TV. You will be hard pressed to find anyone south of the river Aire who believes this explanation. [There’s a Welsh bloke, who chairs Leeds CAMRA, supports the Tykes and practically lives in the Grove at Holbeck. That’s south of the river, and he is prepared to believe it. I claim my £5, Ed].
Gary Hetherington, the Leeds Chief Executive, has tried to keep his players focussed on the challenges ahead in the face of speculation that Phil Davies, the Director of Rugby, may be lured away to the Land of his Fathers. ‘We’ll cross that bridge, IF we come to it’ was the gist. Quite why the Welshman should want to swap the relatively benign Yorkshire environment (where he has enjoyed a length of tenure that would seem like an eon to a Saracens Head Coach or Director of Rugby) for the company of a band of mendacious incompetents, baffles your correspondent.
Neither coaching set-up has yet announced their teams, but both are required to cope without a number of their younger players due to international representation. Leeds are without Doherty, Care, Page and the more peripheral Greendale who are in Dubai representing England U19 in the age group World Cup. Saracens similarly provide Powell, Saull, Mercey and Thomas. In addition Seymour and Russell (Ben T) remain in the far east with England 7s, whilst Haughton is back in the country, but likely to be suffering from jetlag.
Stuart Hooper, formerly of Saracens, will be relishing the opportunity to put one over his erstwhile colleagues, while Dan Scarborough, formerly of Leeds, who returned to joint top of the Premiership try-scorers rankings in his last outing, has the opportunity to cement his claim for that individual crown in the County of his birth.
