PARFC 6. Rosslyn Park 3

Atrocious conditions at The Brickfields, strong winds & driving rain.

To be fair, we get used to it, it makes people feel better that they’ve been beaten by Sale Sharks players. Even though none of the tries were scored by Sharks players…..

Bloody awful is the best way to describe conditions yesterday at Brickfields. Looked like a textbook wet afternoon encounter - ping-pong penalties the highlights among dozens of "bar of soap" errrors. Let's park the Red card in the Discipline Committee inbox straight away. Thereafter, the 500-odd crowd (where else in Nat 1 in similar weather?) were treated to a Dunkirk/Agincourt style exercise in true grit. Not easy viewing and far from pretty - but effective. Park upped the gas after their stroke of HT Yellow expired, with the prevailing wind now in their favour. The East Stand turned up the volume in return. The Thin Red (increasingly brown) Line held.

Inspirational stuff from the remaining 14 and subs. A season-defining performance from a squad who have been improving from Wk 1. What a difference a year makes...

(If you're going to make a habit of this kind of spectating, Lidl currently have some £20 water-repellent/lined ski trousers which performed admirably on their first outing...)

I have to say, in the dry at Cambridge, Chinnor put in a gritty performance which made me wonder how on earth they were in the relegation zone. Their handling was crisp, they have a couple of real flyers, and their forwards were as gritty as ever.

Cambridge did finally get the edge in the forward encounters when the substitutes were made, but we relied on a twenty-minute purple patch where we scored three tries and almost scored a fourth, only for Sir to spot crossing.

There are only two things I do not like about Chinnor, the wind at their ground and the fact we often lose there. Aside from that, it is a great club.

Their problem is that, even if they come out ahead of Leeds, they could yet get reorganized down a league, should the Premiership and/or Championship shrink.

In fact, if they do go for ten team leagues, and both W-clubs are reborn, nobody is safe in this league, not even Rams.

But how many of the Sharks are actually Sale FC minis.

Cambridge currently have Geordie Irvine on loan, He is cover for Matt Dawson, whose employer required him for his day job. He will not be turning out for the Army side this season either.

We apparently have two other Saints training with us, but they have not done enough to earn a shirt yet - even though they have Premiership Cup caps for Saints.

Aside from Geordie, and Jake Garside who came in as cover last season, there are four other Saints who were lent to Cambridge during their development.

Plus George Furbank, who started at Cambridge and Fraser Dingwall, who came up through our minis, but went directly to Saints Academy and was loaned to Coventry - so does not have a Cambridge cap.

At the recent NLR North Zoom Meeting, John Inverdale said that whatever happens with Wasps & Worcester, the NLR Leagues will not be affected. 

He said, this season will see no relegation from the Championship. Nat 1 will see 1 go up and 2 go down. Nat 2 will see the 3 winners promoted and 2 go down from each of the 3 leagues.

I cannot see how it could not affect us.

And one up makes 16.

And London Scottish could yet go North.

Is he saying that the Championship will go ahead with whatever number of teams happens?

I would imagine that he was giving us the position as it was when we met on 31st Oct.

The RFU will do whatever it wants to, whenever it wants to so, we could talk all day about if's, but's and maybe's.

I don’t see either of the 2 Ws reforming, the money demands are too great and Wasps can’t play at the Arena so don’t meet a restart condition. So Ealing up to make 12, Rams up to make 12, 2 down and 3 up leaves 14 at Nat 1. The logic then suggests leaving the two top Leagues at 12, but PRL don’t often do logic.

Ashley could bid for Wasps.

If he is buying the stadium anyway, a Championship team would cost under two million a year and a Premier 15 team under a million. Some of that will be covered by ticket/wet sales, a fraction by the RFU and the rest by sponsorship.

But why would he want to buy a proven (time and time again) failure, money drain (over 100m pounds) of a 'club'?

No idea why it took so long tbh.

Because he knows how to run a business  and keep costs down.

You would not let anyone involved with Wasps anywhere near it.

Just buy the badge.

Use as many of the strength and conditioning coaches, physios etc from Coventry City as you can.

Keep the playing squad to a minimum.

But he would only ever do it if the numbers made sense, assuming Wasps remain in the Championship for ever. And if they did, I doubt he would bother investing for promotion.

And do you really think CCFC would be interested in helping out Wasps? They've been the bane of their existence for years. That bitterness runs deep.

Besides, the arena now has a 'Debranding' Manager overseeing the removal of Wasps' presence. I think that tells us all we need to know about Ashley's stance.