Epic finishes for Northampton Saints and London Welsh prove play-off’s worth

Play-offs are not the most popular means of determining who wins a league title, as is the case in English rugby’s Premiership.

They might be acceptable for its use, as in football’s Championship, League One and League Two, of deciding the third (or fourth) team to earn promotion.

Friday night lights for Northampton’s 21-20 win over Leicester at Franklin’s Gardens

But, detractors of play-offs argue, for nine or ten months of a season to come down to a knock-out format could easily penalise the best and, to date, most consistent team of the year.

I have a certain sympathy with that point of view. Saracens fans may bemoan the fact they have to travel to Twickenham in just under a fortnight to win a crown which in most other sports would have been theirs by rights after they finished nine points clear at the top of the table.

Were they to lose the final to Northampton, at least they wouldn’t feel as robbed as Gloucester in 2002-03, who finished 15 points clear but who lost out to Wasps in the final.

Still, everyone knows the rules at the start of the season, and anyway, when play-offs produce the kind of spectacles we’ve seen this weekend, any lingering doubts surrounding their place in domestic rugby should be cast aside.

I was at Franklin’s Gardens on Friday evening for one of the best matches of club rugby I’ve ever watched, as Northampton staged a brilliant comeback to knock out defending champions Leicester.

Franklin’s Gardens panorama

The Saints have been my adopted English team since I moved to Northamptonshire, and I was pretty disappointed when they lost last year’s Twickenham final to the Tigers.

Friday threatened to go the same way – Leicester, England’s most successful club in recent years, running away with it. When they went 17-6 up at half-time, I thought the game was up.

And when,with just over 20 minutes on the clock, Salesi Ma’afu was red-carded for a punch, it looked like the Saints would be unable to overcome the deficit, which at that stage was still eight points.

By then, the 14,000 crowd was growing tetchy. But it was still as loud as it had been at kick-off, helped by a sizeable (if not sold out) contingent of away fans desperate for their side to retain East Midlands bragging rights. And when George North crossed for Northampton’s first try with a quarter of an hour remaining, the atmosphere only intensified.

The final act was perfect for Saints fans, who hadn’t witnessed a win over their closest rivals since 2011. Wave after wave of pressure finally took its toll on Leicester’s dogged defence, as the ball was spun wide for Tom Wood to step inside and crash over with barely two minutes left on the clock.

Northampton had the slenderest of leads – Stephen Myler’s conversion attempt hit the upright – and their first lead of the game. They had trailed for all but 12 of the preceding 78 minutes, but, successfully negotiated the final few plays to secure a remarkable win.

It was pandemonium in the stands, and I was the happiest I’ve been at a domestic rugby game since Ebbw Vale beat Toulouse in 1998.

Northampton Saints fans acknowledge their team’s lap of honour at Franklin’s Gardens

This afternoon, it was London Welsh’s turn to pull off a sensational, last-ditch, come-from-behind win. Their opponents at the slightly less feverish Kassam Stadium were Leeds Carnegie, who led by seven points from the first leg of their Championship play-off.

The first 50 minutes was quite dull, to be honest, with Welsh ahead on the day but behind on aggregate. And when Leeds racked up 13 quick points to put their overall lead at the same margin, I was on the verge of switching off and heading out into the sun.

Good thing I didn’t. Almost out of the blue, Welsh scored two excellent tries, with near-namesakes Seb Stegmann and Ollie Stedman touching down within two minutes of each other. Gordon Ross missed one of the conversions but slotted an even-later penalty to give the hosts a two-point aggregate win. Wow.

You’ve got to think that the fact both games were play-offs added a crucial element to the drama. It certainly amplified the occasions, as well as the victors’ elation and the losers’ disappointment. Both matches were pure theatre.

And in both instances, the best two teams, the two who finished first and second in the league table, are in the final. Northampton take on Saracens at Twickenham, while London Welsh face heavy favourites Bristol in a two-legged decider.

Both my teams will be underdogs. But if they show the same fighting spirit as they did late on in their respective games this weekend, who’s to say London Welsh next season won’t be playing in a Premiership whose trophy sits proudly in the Franklin’s Gardens trophy cabinet?

Vincent Tan has antagonised fans, but Cardiff City just weren’t good enough

When Swansea City were promoted to the Premier League in May 2011, I remember some Cardiff City fans joking that they thought their South Wales rivals would be there for four seasons – summer, autumn, winter and spring.

Three years later, Swansea have again secured their Premier League status, with Cardiff’s own top-flight experience lasting just four seasons (one year) since cruising to the Championship title last year.

Cardiff City lose 2-1 at home to Newcastle United in October 2013

It’s easy to feel sorry for Cardiff fans. Not just because I know so many of them, but also because of the way a campaign which started so gloriously against Manchester City is ending with such a whimper.

Vincent Tan finally managed to change Cardiff from blue to red pic.twitter.com/StphWxTQEM

— The FOOTBALL Bible (@TFBible_) May 3, 2014

On the field, City have taken 13 points from the 19 Premier League games since Malky Mackay was sacked on December 27. It’s a miserable return, but it wasn’t as if all was rosy with the Scot in charge. During his tenure, Cardiff picked up 17 points from 18 matches, so on course to miss the traditional safety target of 40 points.

Mackay, who guided Cardiff to the Premier League for the first time, was treated pretty poorly. But although Fulham and (probably) Norwich, the other relegated teams, have also ridden on the managerial merry-go-round this season to little or no avail, the job done by Gus Poyet at Sunderland, Tony Pulis at Crystal Palace, and even Garry Monk at Swansea, shows a managerial sacking is often worth the risk for a team mired at the bottom.

But the Mackay affair was another stick with which fans could beat the Vincent Tan regime. If Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had kept the Bluebirds up, the appointment would have been a masterstroke. As it is, the whole episode has become another entry on the ever-growing list of shoddy decisions.

Tan – an enigma in driving gloves, a moustachioed cartoon villain – might not have been entirely responsible for Cardiff’s relegation, which was sealed by a 3-0 capitulation at Newcastle. But he has robbed the club of much of its identity since his red makeover of the Bluebirds at the start of the 2012-13 season.

I’m not a Cardiff City fan – although I want to see them do well for the sake of football in Wales, and because I’ve enjoyed watching two versions of El Llasico this season – so I can’t say whether the majority would prefer to play in blue but perpetually stuck in the Championship, or in red as an established Premier League side. Obviously that debate has been rendered academic for at least a couple more seasons – Cardiff will be back in the second tier next year, and probably still in red.

I’ve had a similar issue as a Newcastle United fan. Mike Ashley has never been popular, although he hasn’t (yet?) demanded a change away from the black and white kit. His rebranding of St James’ Park was generally ignored – it’s easier to do so with that than with kit colour – but criticism usually only flares up properly when the club is doing badly (i.e. since Christmas. It’s tough for Cardiff that Newcastle’s first win in seven condemned them to relegation).

Two years too late from a paper that at times operated as cheerleaders for Tan when the rebrand was implemented pic.twitter.com/iyPkzD50G5

— Spirit of Mirko (@mirkobolesan) May 4, 2014

And so it is with relegated Cardiff. Tan’s first season at the club saw promotion, now he has overseen relegation. Where will Cardiff be this time next year? If there is an immediate return to the top flight, the grumbling will be more muted. Mid-table mediocrity, or worse, could see things come to a head.

But justifiable though criticism of Tan may be, at least Cardiff haven’t been swallowed by debt. In any case, this season ended in relegation not because of red strips but because Cardiff simply have not been good enough. On the pitch, the season hasn’t been an abject humiliation – they picked up famous wins against Manchester City and Swansea – but it did prove that the Bluebirds just didn’t have a squad of sufficient strength to compete in the Premier League.

Someone has to be relegated, and at least Cardiff haven’t “done a Derby”. The challenge for Cardiff City is for bounce back without the club’s owners further antagonising the fans, the lifeblood of any club and without commercial interests riding roughshod over the club’s history.