Tales from the Members' Bar

No.5 Christian Short

Christian Short puts his lack of a Geordie accent down to Irish parents and a good education. "Larn Yersel' Geordie" is not part of the reading list at Hexham's Queen Elizabeth High. His early rugby connections are with Gosforth where his father, John, is still Chairman.

He came to us after three seasons with Connacht. Playing seriously good rugby (ECC semi-finals) in front of 1,200 perhaps twice that when teams with big followings turned up for the Euro games, it was a culture shock when he started playing for Saints. Ten times that number at each and every game to get behind a team that was struggling to hold its own in the league. It is a real driver for the players to want to repay that loyalty, that fanaticism by getting back into the Premiership and doing well.

Going back to the evening, about eighteen months ago, when Paul Grayson announced to the First XV members that we had signed a lock who was a straightforward middle-of-the-line jumper who would win us a regular stream of possession, Christian has delivered. He is keenly aware that he has had a certain fall from grace this season.

He may or may not have been  undroppable last season but he played whenever he was fit and did all he could in a line-out known to have more bad days than good. He was high in both the lines-out won and stolen lists. He can see objectively that perhaps he has not been able to carry his form from last year through to this season. He and the rest of the squad know when things are not as good as they should be and, collectively, they work hard to put it right.

There is a different regime in place this year and one person who works harder than most is forwards coach, Dorian West. When things do not go well at the weekend, very little of it is to do with lack of preparation. With the match-day squad going through our routines and the back-up providing competition based on video of the opposition, Dorian has the spade-work done and it is up to the players to perform.

There is that other imponderable, too. Even without Damien Browne, there is still plenty of competition in the ranks. Alex Rae has made a big breakthrough this year; Phil Hoy and Courtney Lawes are outstanding prospects.  All the Academy boys work tremendously hard. They are a great bunch of lads, always willing to listen and having the nous and confidence to ask questions. It is as well to have the some older heads around, too. Christian was thinking particularly of the Wanderers' game against Henley. John Brake seemed to want to play it at such a pace that even he would not have been able to keep it going for the distance.

By playing in the Wanderers, our academy players are asked to perform at a very high standard indeed.  Those that they play against are just a step away from the Premiership. In many ways the league games on Monday are harder than some of those we play in NL1 on Saturday. The pace is higher and it does not let up.

Now to the question of the week. What would you expect of a man who has had his hair colour analysed to be African Sunset? Ginger Nuts, of course.

arw

29.11.2007

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