Guinness Premiership Preview: Round 20
Who will finish top? Who will finish fourth? Who will be relegated?
All of these questions remain unanswered before the weekend’s Guinness Premiership action gets underway. Although it’s been said before: maybe, just maybe, this will be the round where one or two of these conundrums move a significant step closer to finally being solved.
What we do know for sure at this stage is that the fight to avoid relegation is quickly developing into a slog-fest between the bottom four clubs. It now appears near enough certain that one from either Newcastle Falcons, Sale Sharks, Leeds Carnegie or Worcester Warriors will drop out of the Premiership next month.
Sale, who currently hover perilously close to the relegation zone, in 10th, will travel to in-form Bath on Saturday afternoon. The hosts have hauled themselves away from danger in recent weeks, and have proved themselves to be a particularly tough outfit to beat at the Recreation Ground. Meanwhile, the Sharks have achieved mixed results in their last few matches. A 17-3 victory against Worcester a fortnight ago was the standout result, though, and that should put them in good enough stead to retain their place in the top-flight.
It’s Worcester who are feeling the pressure more than any other side in the league right now. Rock bottom of the table, four points from safety; a home victory against play-off hopefuls London Wasps on Saturday would be the club’s biggest result of the season. With just three wins all season, the odds are firmly stacked against the Warriors. They will have to live up to their name and produce an heroic display at Sixways to overcome their opponents and give themselves a real chance of surviving the drop.
If those two fixtures look tricky but potentially winnable; then the other two clubs in the relegation dogfight, Leeds and Newcastle, could find themselves in an even worse predicament come Monday morning. They’d both welcome a match in the ‘tricky but potentially winnable’ category this weekend.
First up, Leeds travel to the Madejski Stadium to face London Irish on Sunday afternoon; before Newcastle welcome reigning champions, Leicester, to Kingston Park.
After spending so much of the season in bottom position, Leeds had done fantastically well to string together several wins in the opening months of 2010. However, just recently, the wheels seem to have come off once again, and the club’s bid for survival has suddenly taken another turn for the worse.
Neil Back’s side have lost their last three matches and they must play Wasps’ rivals for fourth spot, London Irish. Even more worrying for Leeds, the last match that the Exiles played at home, Sale were torn apart in a 38-0 mauling. Are they destined to suffer the same fate?
Meanwhile, Leicester may find themselves in second place by the time their match against Newcastle kicks off. If Northampton find a way past Gloucester 24 hours earlier, then the Tigers will arrive in the north-east in the runners-up spot. Richard Cockerill’s side will have the chance to regain top spot with victory over the Falcons, though.
On paper, this may look like a routine win in store for the visitors, but the history books suggest that an upset can’t be ruled out. Surprisingly, Newcastle don’t tend to fare too badly on home turf against the formidable Tigers. In fact, Leicester’s only victory at Kingston Park since 2000, happened six years ago in 2004. Newcastle have been in freefall over recent months, but there would be no better time to end their wretched run of form than this weekend.
Northampton Saints can keep up the pressure on their rival title-challengers, Leicester Tigers, with victory against Gloucester on Saturday afternoon. Saints’ head coach, Jim Mallinder, has already been busy working on bringing fresh faces to Franklin’s Gardens for next season, but he will ensure his current crop of players are up for the challenge this weekend.
In a re-run of last month’s LV= Cup Final, in which Northampton edged past their opponents in thrilling fashion, 30-24, the Cherry and Whites will be eager to gain revenge by throwing a spanner into the works of Saints’ hopes of finishing top.
Saracens and Harlequins will also square off late on Saturday afternoon. This one promises to be a tight encounter, although much depends on how the Sarries approach the match. When they’re on form, they are one of the deadliest teams in the league, but when they’re below-par – like they have been for most of 2010 – their opponents are often left with the simplest task of picking them off.
Next weekend marks the penultimate round of Premiership matches, and at this stage of the season – the business end – points become more valuable than at any other stage of the campaign.
Who will hold their nerve and who will fold?
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