Guinness Premiership review: round 20
Northampton Saints ascended to the top of the Guinness Premiership on Saturday afternoon following another thrilling victory over Gloucester. The club’s tenure at the top of the pile was brief, however. Just 24 hours later, Leicester Tigers regained pole position with another ruthless display of efficiency against Newcastle Falcons.
England winger Chris Ashton was again in fine form, playing an instrumental role in Northampton’s victory over Gloucester on Saturday afternoon. In a re-run of last month’s LV= Cup Final, it was the Saints who once again prevailed. Ashton scored a hat-trick of tries in the club’s 38-23 bonus-point victory at Franklin’s Gardens to haul his side to the top of the league table.
Unfortunately for the Saints, their rivals for top spot, the unflappable Leicester, remained unfazed going into their fixture a day later. The Tigers rarely got out of second gear at Kingston Park but still managed to hammer Newcastle in the first half to take a resounding 28-0 lead going into the break. Lewis Moody grabbed a brace of tries to ensure the points would be heading Leicester’s way, but the second half was a relative non-spectacle as the score finished 31-7 to the visitors.
Just like the race for top spot, the sprint for the final play-off place remains as tight as ever following the weekend’s action.
Both London Wasps and London Irish were favourites going into their weekend fixtures, and Wasps managed to maintain their bid for fourth spot with a narrow victory against bottom club Worcester Warriors, who are now clear favourites to be relegated next month. Two tries from centre Dominic Waldouck along with some clinical kicking from the outgoing Danny Cipriani sealed Wasps a vital victory at Sixways.
Worcester, meanwhile, are now left staring down the abyss - their future in the Guinness Premiership now reliant on them beating both Leeds Carnegie and Gloucester. After six years in the top-flight, it will take something resembling a miracle for the Warriors to avoid falling through the trapdoor and into National League One.
It’s because of Leeds’ incredible form since the turn of 2010 that Worcester have sunk into such a predicament; but following three consecutive defeats in recent weeks, the wheels were rattling on Leeds’ bid for survival once more. However, another gutsy performance from Neil Back’s men saw them storm to a remarkable 23-13 victory against London Irish at the Madejski Stadium on Saturday. The win also lifted the club to the lofty heights of ninth place – unchartered territory for a team that looked doomed for relegation just five months ago.
At this stage of the season, such a defeat can have a dramatic effect on how a team’s campaign will pan out, and London Irish may well have wasted their best opportunity of finishing inside the play-off spots. The Exiles will now have to rely on Wasps slipping up, while simultaneously avoiding defeat against Gloucester and Northampton to leapfrog the 2008 champions back into fourth spot before the end of the campaign.
Bath may soon be challenging Irish for fifth spot unless Irish’s form improves. A routine 34-15 win over relegation-threatened Sale Sharks at the Recreation Ground was certainly among the least surprising results of the weekend, but an imperative one for Steve Meehan’s side nonetheless, who are enjoying an impressive end to the 2009/10 Premiership season.
With much still up in the air going into the penultimate round of matches, Saracens do at least appear to have third place sown up after a superb 37-18 win over Harlequins at Wembley Stadium. The state of the Wembley turf had been the subject of much debate last week following the FA Cup semi-finals, but it was in pristine enough condition for the Sarries to produce their best rugby of 2010. A crowd of over 47,000 watched Brendan Venter’s side cruise to another bonus-point victory, and they must now be considered certainties for the play-off semi-finals despite their monumental stumble at the turn of the year.
The play-offs are now in sight, and it’s poised to be one of the most fascinating four-way battles since the Premiership’s inception. Meanwhile, Worcester are braced to face one last hammer blow to the final nail in their coffin – possibly as early as this Sunday. But while there are points still up for grabs, very little is certain, and this year’s campaign is set to go right to the wire.
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