If results don’t go our way, however, we could drop as low as 6^th on Saturday evening, which would represent our lowest standing in the table since round 12 back at the start of December.  The clubs occupying the top six places have been unchanged since mid-October, and once Bristol climbed into the top two at the end of that month, Welsh, Pirates, Bedford and Nottingham have been jostling for position in the chasing pack.  The Blues and Nottingham both entertain sides facing relegation play-offs (Rotherham and Coventry respectively), and with the three clubs immediately behind us all level on 55 points to our 58, defeat at the Mennaye Field could see all three overtake us.  It could be argued that this makes a mockery of pre-determining the seedings, but results over six months have proved that there’s nothing to choose between the four clubs.

The final two places in the promotion play-off – and for the unlucky team, the last spot in the relegation battle – are to be decided on Saturday.  All eyes will be on the meeting of 7^th and 8^th when Doncaster entertain Plymouth at Castle Park – the Knights’ recent run of four wins in a fortnight means that they are all but assured of a place in the top 8, and an away win would see Albion join them.  For Moseley to leapfrog the losers, they would need to beat Bristol at Billesley Common and – in the event of a Plymouth win at Donny – overturn a points differential of over 100.

One major criticism of the season to date has been the continuous moving of the goalposts in terms of how the play-offs will pan-out.  The decision to announce the seedings before the final round of fixtures was intended to give clubs time to promote the forthcoming fixtures, although from our perspective we still don’t know who the 7^th seeds – our guests at ODP at 12-30pm next Saturday - will be.  The mass postponements, caused by one of the harshest winters for almost 30 years, couldn’t possibly have been foreseen by the powers-that-be, but the lack of free weekends has meant that midweek rearragements have affected the majority of clubs.  A proposal from Exeter that the play-off final be scheduled over two legs rather than a one-off showdown at Twickenham was approved by the majority of clubs in the autumn – the Chiefs’ thinking was that a) it would generate more cash for the participating clubs, who would each 100% of the revenue from their home leg, as opposed to the Twickenham takings being swallowed by the RFU; and b) a two-legged final would reduce the likelihood of the outcome being decided by an unlucky bounce or an incorrect decision from the officials.

Yet last week’s decision – again adopted after approval from a majority of the 10 clubs – that the semi-final revenue should be split 70:30 in favour of the losing team (rather than 70:30 in favour of the home team, as had previously been proposed) has provoked indignation from Sandy Park.  Chairman Tony Rowe has suggested that any team drawn away to Bristol or Exeter will turn up with no intention of winning, preferring to happily walk away with the cash prize; he conveniently seems to have overlooked the fact that 100% of the takings from a home leg in the final should comfortably out-strip the lost 40% of revenue from the semi-final. It does seem that the RFU have been much more flexible towards the wishes of the Championship clubs over the last six months, which is a welcome change after the way in which the plans to demote five clubs were forced upon us last season.  On the other hand, as one Pirates fan posted on Rolling Maul last week: ‘My only concern would be that the RFU are now allowing themselves to be dictated to by the Championship clubs, and isn't that what we all used to complain about with regard to the PRL clubs?’ 

And so to the game…  Pirates’ 26-20 win over Newport at Camborne last Sunday saw them qualify for the quarter-finals of the British & Irish Cup – Leinster’s failure to pick-up bonus points in their wins over Pirates, Chiefs and Plymouth, combined with their 10-6 defeat at home to the Black & Ambers in round four means that their 33-22 win over Gael Force on Wednesday night wasn’t enough to overhaul the Cornish side.  In the league, Saturday’s game will be their fourth consecutive match against rival top six sides, a resounding 47-19 win over 14-man Nottingham last time out coming on the back of defeats to Bedford (19-16 away) and Exeter (30-15 at home).  Flanker Blair Cowan is still joint-second with Errie Claassens on 11 tries, but Errie has scored only once away from Old Deer Park – and that was our very first try of the season, at Bristol on the opening weekend.  Aled Thomas is still third on the points-scoring charts with 171, 45 clear of Pirates’ Rob Cook.  However, Cook, James Moore (44 points) and Johnny Bentley (34) have landed a combined total of 71 of their 100 shots at goal, whereas our top three marksmen, Aled, Gordon Ross and Ed Lewis-Pratt, have converted only 72 from 122 attempts (59%).

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