All I Know About Rugby Came From Julie Andrews

By Adrian Laws
January 5 2005

I’ll let you into a little management secret. You can tell when the Seer reckons a meeting has gone on too long or has gone way off track when you hear him gently humming ‘Climb Every Mountain’. It usually works.

‘Climb Every Mountain’. It’s particularly apt at the moment. Last season, Heineken Cup qualification was JC2’s target, and he delivered. So here we are. If we are to qualify for next years competition we have to complete one of the following:

•  Take a win from the always difficult away fixture at Sale to progress in the Powergen

•  Close the ever widening gap to join the top three in the Premiership

•  Take maximum points in our remaining games in this years Heineken – and even then leave ourselves at the mercy of the results in other pools.

•  Beat Wasps. Okay, that’s not a way in, but it would be really good, wouldn’t it?

 ‘Climb Every Mountain’ indeed.

By rights, the prospect of Bath taking on Leinster at the Rec in the Heineken Cup should mean that everyone who professes a passion for the blue, black and white should be having sleepless nights in anticipation of a festival of glorious rugby.

But am I the only one out here who looks on this Saturday’s fixture with something approaching dread?

New Year’s Day was miserable. Should the harsh lessons taught by Saracens at the weekend not have been learned, we are looking at one of the biggest savagings handed out by an away team at the Rec in recent years. No mistake. So, what should have been learned?

Simple stuff. Retain the ball in the tackle; support the ball carrier; make the kicking out of hand count; convert possession into points; run at the defence. This is a game that will be won in the centre. We have to mention that man O’Driscoll, named in the L-Equipe international team of the year, contender for the Lions captaincy and the saviour of Leinster in the dying minutes away to Burgoin. Do we have a match winner in the centre? Not at the moment. A season or so ago there were grumblings about lack of imagination in the centres, but what price a crash ball now?

A set of backs lacking in confidence. A pack ‘depleted’ by injury relying on new blood rather than experience. No Humph. Can we win it?

Course we can. Even if we have to belt out ‘Climb Every Mountain’ from the Virgin Mobile for 80 minutes, we can win it.