Fairness? You want fairness? Then don’t come looking for it at the Gallagher Premiership final, a shoot-out heebie-jeebies show, a shot at glory that rewards the fast finishers-on-the-rails and is the stuff of nightmare for the tried, tested and true of Bath, league champions in all that they have done apart from that little matter of winning this Saturday’s final at the Allianz Stadium.
Bath have made all the running but Leicester, doughty, over-my-dead-body Leicester, are not there to make up numbers, not a twitch in their bodies expressing satisfaction at the season’s revival act so far under Michael Cheika, a tough hombre from Down Under who shapes sides in his own image. The narrative is compelling, a re-run of a fractious rivalry of old, with a potential punchline that stalks the dreams of Bath supporters. Best-in-class all the way through the semester until that last exam. The play-off format has delivered riches in prospect for neutrals. For the committed down alongside the River Avon there will be howls in the night if the title does not come to pass.
The play-off system was a contentious format when first introduced over 20 years ago, a contrivance that came into being for one simple reason – money. Extra games, more cash through the gates, a broadcasting uptick and a day in the Twickenham sun for the sponsors. It was show-pony sport.
It took a while for the game to accept the notion that a league was actually a knock-out tournament, that months of sweat and toil could be undone by a lucky break or a dodgy call. Gloucester romped the league one year only to be stuffed by Wasps who timed their sprint to the tape beautifully. For a few years the league winners were deemed champions, then that too was amended, particularly as there was a lengthy spell when Premiership fixtures clashed with international matches and the unfairness (there we go, that word again) factor for clubs supplying players to test teams grew ever more glaring.
That landscape has changed. Yet still we have the play-offs. Fair? If Bath win their first league title in 29 years on Saturday, there will be a measure of that. Only the most diehard Leicester Tigers’ fan (there are a few of those to be fair) could quibble with Bath’s status as the stand-out club side in the land over the last nine months. (You can quibble, however, with the acclaim for their potential Treble as it would not carry the same status as a Man Utd treble or even Leicester-like doubles of yore down as the European Challenge Cup does not the gravitas of a Champions Cup title). That’s nit-picking. What can’t be gainsaid is that Bath might have the acclamation of critics already in the bag but they simply do not yet have anything in the trophy cabinet to prove that.
Might it be time to revert to what was originally, to have the league winners declared just that, ‘league title winners’
No matter what happens on Saturday, the playing out across what are sure to be 80 compelling minutes of action, the ebb and flow, the heft and bite, the cut and thrust shaping the scoreboard, there will be a slight feeling of injustice if Bath were not to prevail. No matter that Leicester might deserve it on the day. They will not deserve it over the season.
Tough titty? Of course it is. Who gives a stuff? Rules are rules and the system is embedded in a team’s consciousness. That’s what all ten clubs signed up for. You have to be in it to win it. The play-offs are a staging post, another set of games to prove you are the best (or not). However, now that clashes with international games are no longer a feature, might it not be time for a rethink? Might it be time to revert to what was originally, to have the league winners declared just that, ‘league title winners’ and then another plaudit – champions – for whoever does win the knockout phase?
That way the league itself has more credibility in itself, greater integrity through to the final weekend of the regular season. Bath had secured home semi-final advantage with three rounds to play. The play-off format, though, did give us a crackerjack last four finale with both the Rec and Welford Rd packed to the gunnels with not one spectator in either stadium having any right to feel hard done-by with what was on offer in the semi-finals – high-octane sport played out in theatrical fashion. What’s not to like?
The thought occurred when watching both matches that the proposed rebel R360 breakaway competition could have a blend of PT Barnum and Don King on their marketing board and they would come nowhere near being able to conjure spectacles as genuine and as absorbing as those delivered by the respective teams of Bath, Bristol, Leicester and Sale. No matter what the R360 money-men impresarios come up with in the various showbiz fleshpots of Vegas or Monaco it will never approach the levels of authenticity and connectivity that these games gave us.
Bath have lived up to their billing as accomplished performers. And they have done it by shedding that tag of pampered under-achievers. It’s good to know that money only takes you so far.
You might be able to draw on players from Suva or the Waikato or Queensland or Planet Zog but you cannot manufacture proper rivalry, proper interest and affiliation, proper sport. Bath and Bristol had that in spades from pre-match through to post-match, Bristol lobbing a few verbal grenades in the direction of what they still consider as their upstart neighbours, a trash-talking strategy that added to the occasion.
Bath have lived up to their billing as accomplished performers. And they have done it by shedding that tag of pampered under-achievers. It’s good to know that money only takes you so far. By far the most impressive thing about Bath’s campaign is that it has been an all-club, all-court operation, from the Herculean efforts of a Tom Dunn at hooker, through to the impact of unsung talents of a Miles Reid or Guy Pepper. Throw in the likes of commander-in-chief, scrum-half, Ben Spencer or the raw talent of a Ciaran Donoghue from the bench and you can see that Bath are a team first and foremost. Of course it helps mightily that the individual brilliance that lies within Finn Russell can pop up to put things to right also.
But Leicester have a sense of themselves that will be hard to subdue. They, too, have grit and warrior spirit up front, from Julian Montoya to Tommy Reffell. Handre Pollard will surely not have another WTF kicking day, the dead-eyed one going all squint from the tee. Factor in star-factor possibilities such as flying wing, Adam Radwan and slicing impact subs such as Izaia Perese and the Tigers’ strike-force threat is clear.
That there is such huge jeopardy for Bath adds hugely to the drama that is to come. The outcome may not be fair but to hell with it, when was sport supposed to be fair?
