A day out in Northamptonshire
Saturday 6th May 2017: Aviva Premiership Round 22: Northampton Saints v Harlequins at Franklin’s Gardens; Result – Northampton Saints 22: Harlequins 20: Northampton Saints 4 league points, Harlequins 1 losing bonus point.
Final league positions – Harlequins 52 points, Northampton Saints 52 points. Harlequins finish 6th – and therefore automatically qualify for the European Rugby Champions Cup in 2017/2018 at Northampton Saints’ expense – due to having one more league victory. Northampton Saints finish in 7th.
This was always going to be a tense, gripping and occasionally feisty affair because coming into the game Quins were on 51 league points and Saints on 48 – thus it was effectively set up as a straightforward shoot-out as to which of them would finish in 6th place in the league and thereby gain the last automatic Premiership place in next year’s senior European cup competition.
To boil it down to the essence, playing with the benefit of home advantage, Saints not only had to win this match but also either gain a four-try bonus point or prevent Quins gaining one for losing by 7 points or less.
To complete the anorak’s gorge-fest, and raise the tension-quotient of both sets of fans to heart-attack level, if Saints were indeed to win with an added a four-try bonus point, the only way that Quins could then finish sixth would be to finish with two bonus points, i.e. one for scoring four tries themselves and the other for losing within seven points or less of the Saints’ winning score.
To be blunt about it, of course, these are two teams currently in the doldrums or – as the Saints fans like to characterise it “in transition” [to what – future success … or oblivion?]
Saints are one of the bastions of English rugby, proof of which is their recent proud record of consistently finishing in the top four (play-off) positions, but in the last three seasons they have been gradually dropping off the pace.
Head coach Jim Mallinder, now six seasons or more into his tenure, has been copping increasing flak from fans over the past eighteen months for failing ‘to take the team forward’.
To put no finer point on in, they have resembled a rock climber with his finger-tips hanging onto the ledge of a mountain summit with gradually failing strength, in sore danger of losing it and thence falling 800 feet back to the bottom.
In days of yore they used to have a fearsome pack and a slick set of backs but their frustratingly-frequent tendency to fold inexplicably and/or be out-lasted towards the end of games has sent Saints supporters into a trough of despair and hang-dog black humour.
This makes them worthy candidates to ‘join the club’ when it comes to rivalry for pessimism with their counterparts at Quins, whose capacity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on any particular day has long been a source of legend. Time and again, against all odds, the quartered-coloured men could suddenly out of the blue can ambush any given top team and give them a pasting – or, just as (or even more) likely, fold like a pack of cards to one who locked forever in the scramble to avoid relegation.
After their Premiership-winning ‘annus mirabilis’ of 20111/2012, knowledgeable fan-punditry around the country has it that Quins marked time and failed to push on – hence their season-upon-season slide down the league table and failure to qualify for the European top competition in 2015/2016 – the yardstick by which all Aviva Premiership rugby clubs judge themselves to sitting at the top table of their chosen sport (or not).
This exciting contest could easily have gone either way – it stood 17-17 at half-time and the outcome was in doubt until the final whistle.
It would be fair to say that both sets of supporters were expecting things to go against them and, when the final whistle came even your author – sitting in the middle of the new Keith Barwell Stand for the first time in his life – was totally confused as to the outcome.
Saints had won without scoring four tries (that’s four points to them, taking them to 52).
Quins had finished 2 points behind (equating to one bonus point, also taking them to 52).
The only issue was – which of them had finished sixth in the league table?
I was appropriately despondent, being under the impression that the deciding factor was which of the teams – as it happened, Saints – had the better points difference over the season.
However, it turned out I was wrong.
According to the League rules – as someone in the row behind me eventually pointed out – if two teams finished level on points, what counted was who had secured most wins during the season. Quins had 11, Saints 10.
Quins were into next seasons European Champions Cup!
The highlight of my day, ironically, was the social side. Armed with a packed lunch that I consumed on the way up the M1, I rendezvoused with my Saints-supporting former sister-in-law and husband at their farm for a noisy, joshing, heart-warming reunion pre-match drink with their party of friends before our large convoy set off for Franklin’s Gardens some forty minutes way, arriving and parking up an hour before kick-off.
Quite by chance, on a whim I successfully made contact by phone with my second cousin, also a Saints fan, and met up with him in front of our seats just before the match began and later – as we were walking out after proceedings were over – even bumped into a Quins grandee of my close acquaintance.
All in all, a positive day’s outing and something of an antidote to my season-long sense of disappointment at Quins’ on-field performances. At least I’ll be able to tell my grandchildren one day that I was there for Nick Evans’ last-ever match before retiring …
