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?

My highlights of 2013

Judging by my 2013 ticket collection (below), I possibly wasted a bit too much time watching sport this year. Anyway, I thought I might as well pick out a couple of highlights and try to relive the glory… In chronological order:

January 20: Leicester 9-5 Toulouse, Heineken Cup

Because who doesn’t love watching sport in the snow?

Tigers officials clear snow from the Welford Road pitch

February 9: France 6-16 Wales, Six Nations

A terrible game, but it got Wales’s victorious Six Nations campaign off and running.

France 6-16 Wales, Stade de France

March 16: Wales 30-3 England, Six Nations

Goes without saying. What a performance!

Wales lift the Six Nations trophy after successfully defending their title

June 22: Royal Ascot

My first time at the races, and all three of us who went finished up. Nice.

Royal Ascot 2013

August 16: Mo Farah wins the 5,000m, World Athletics Championships, Moscow

A stunning “double double” for Mo. Made all the sweeter by the disappointment of a Frenchman sitting behind us who had spent the whole race telling us how badly Farah had misjudged the race.

Mo Farah wins his second gold of the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow

September 29: Pittsburgh Steelers 27-34 Minnesota Vikings, NFL, Wembley

One of the best NFL International Series matches there’s been.

Wembley for Steelers @ Vikings

October 5: Cardiff City 1-2 Newcastle United, Premier League

Exciting game – my first football match for ages – and great seats. Thanks Chris!

Newcastle win at Cardiff City Stadium

December 28: Ebbw Vale 45-0 RGC 1404, Championship

Sport-wise, where it all started for me. Good to finish the year watching the Steelmen dominate yet again.

Ebbw Vale v RGC 1404

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Some others:

London Welsh v Sale

Harlequins v Munster

Euroleague basketball, O2 Arena

Leicester Tigers v Harlequins

Northampton v Leicester

Cardiff Blues v Edinburgh

Northampton v Ospreys

 

…and here are those tickets. I love sport.

My collection of tickets from 2013 sports events

Dylan Hartley v Wayne Barnes v Richard Cockerill

Despite the fact it was entirely his fault, and it’s hardly the only disciplinary blemish on his career, I can’t help feeling slightly sorry for Dylan Hartley.

Not because I believe his story about his eloquent “f****** cheat” being aimed at Tom Youngs as opposed to referee, and Stuart Broad-lookalike, Wayne Barnes.

Twickenham was stunned by Dylan Hartley’s red card – especially at my end, where we couldn’t see the colour of the card Wayne Barnes showed

But the fact a second of madness – undoubtedly borne out of a frustration at the way the first half of the Premiership final had ended, with a Stephen Myler mistake and a collapsed scrum giving Leicester the chance to extend their lead by three cheap points – has cost Hartley his Lions place and, possibly, Saints the title.

Even so, you’ve got to commend Barnes for having the guts to show Hartley a straight red card for an incident which a less authoritative referee (and, dare I say it, most football referees) could easily have got away with pretending it had never happened. It’s good to see some officials sticking up against abuse.

The RFU should be praised, too, for the speed in which they convened a hearing and handed Hartley an 11-week ban. It gave Rory Best the chance to get on the plane to Australia straight away, even if it was disappointing Warren Gatland didn’t decide to heed my advice to #callforKen (Owens).

 
Anyway, the RFU has to deal with Leicester coach Richard Cockerill who, let’s face it, is guilty of almost as much as Hartley.

Cockerill came racing down the steps from his coaching position to berate the fourth official after what he believed – probably wrongly – to be a late hit by Saints second row Courtney Lawes on Tigers captain Toby Flood. In effect, Cockerill was also questioning the competence of the officials, if not outright accusing them of cheating. Respecting the referee applies as much to players on the field as to coaches off it.

Oh, and it’s been a bit overshadowed, but the game itself wasn’t bad either.

Rugby playoffs: are they fair?

Thanks to sporting play-offs, it’s been an exciting couple of weeks in my adopted county of Northamptonshire.

Last Saturday, Northampton Town FC made their first trip to Wembley for 15 years for the League Two play-off final. Thousands of fans descended on the capital – although it’s probably best to gloss over the result.

This Saturday, it will be a similar story, as the Northampton Saints face East Midlands rivals the Leicester Tigers in the Premiership final at Twickenham. The match is a sell-out.

Both the football and rugby teams can be grateful the play-off systems in their respective leagues allowed them a day in the sun: Town finished sixth in League Two, while Saints ended the season fourth in the Aviva Premiership.

Leicester Tigers defeated Harlequins 33-16 at Welford Road in the Premiership semi-final

And let’s not forget London Welsh only earned their place at English rugby’s top table after taking advantage of last season’s Championship play-offs.

So I suppose I shouldn’t be complaining too much about the play-offs. I was at Welford Road for the Tigers’ victory over Harlequns and I’m off to Twickenham on Saturday, where I will be able to cheer on my local team.

But how can it be fair that Northampton, who finished three places and 12 points adrift of table-toppers Saracens, should be able to wipe out that advantage over the course of an 80-minute semi-final?

Six times since the introduction of the play-off system to choose the English champions was introduced in 2002-03 the table toppers have not lifted the Premiership trophy. Six times the team which proved to be consistently the best squad over the course of the best part of nine months had their glory snatched away over the course of a couple of late-season games. And six will become seven on Saturday as either Richard Cockerill or Jim Mallinder’s men are crowned “champions”.

Of course, supporters of the system would argue the mark of a true champion is one who can perform when the pressure is on. However, isn’t that the point of a cup competition, rather than a league? Does it sort the men from the boys? Does it weed out the chokers – Gloucester have topped the table three times without winning the league – and reward those, Wasps most prominently, who peak at the right time?

The play-offs certainly add extra interest to the final stages of the season in both football and rugby, and in football, it is surely more acceptable that the league winners should not have to face the play-offs.

You can see why the Premiership favours their system of bringing the curtain down on the season in front of a sell-out Twickenham, especially as the cup competition no longer runs. Arguably, it also helps even up the season for those teams which lose players during the Six Nations and the autumn internations (though shouldn’t the same arguments therefore apply to relegation?).

But a major part of the problem, too, is the fact that, unlike the equivalent top flight in football, there could otherwise be very little to play for at the top of the table by the end of the season. With half the league qualifying for the Heineken Cup, teams in third, fourth and fifth could have almost nothing to play for in the season’s final weeks without a knockout phase to come.

So are there any solutions? It’s difficult: teams which finished top used to get a bye straight to the final, but it often meant their momentum stalled and they suffered for that.

Could you give the higher-ranked teams a points advantage in the semi-finals? No, ridiculous idea – it would be both arbitrary and encourage negative, defensive play.

So maybe, to misquote Winston Churchill particularly badly: the play-offs are the worst form of deciding the champions except all the others – at least until we get some reform of European competitions (the subject of another future rant).

Still, if the Saints go marching into Twickenham on Saturday and defeat the Tigers, I doubt the merits of the play-off system will be at the forefront of my mind.

**Disclaimer: I realise the Premiership is not the only league which uses play-offs!