Sun Tzu wrote, over 2500 years ago “He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious”. This is often paraphrased as “Fight only battles you can win”. Unfortunately, because we aren’t Wasps, we don’t get to pick and choose whom we play, or when, and that is at the root of Kingsley Jones’s decision to make so many changes for the away game at Leicester. What would be going through his mind over the Christmas pudding, was his decision right, and what will have influenced him?                 

1. Harlequins. They were due at Edgeley Park a week after the Leicester match. We may have beaten them twice in the Heineken before Christmas, but this is the Premiership and they, like us, are mid-table and scrapping for every point going. In addition, Leeds showed signs of life in the runup to Christmas and were due to play Bath, the club immediately above them. 4 or 5 points to Leeds would have us, and Quins, and all the other sides with 20-odd points in the table, looking over our shoulders very nervously. So Quins at EP is a must-win game.

2. Leicester. Tigers away is a tough fixture (state the bleeding obvious, why don’t I?). The new stand makes the ground even more impressive and intimidating, so the “16^th man” is much in evidence. Are we likely to take much away from Welford Road? Probably not, and Tigers’ subsequent bonus point win against a strong Wasps side supports that view (just how different are 32-6 and 34-8?).

3. Damage to Confidence and Morale. Well, this is clearly a risk if we have a “Second XV”, who get the feeling that they are just cannon fodder, and they only appear on the teamsheet when we are effectively going to chuck a game. But I don’t think we are so unsubtle. We see a fair amount of swapping around from week to week, reflecting injuries, rest and international calls, so I don’t think we have a First and Second XV. We obviously have preferred players, and a strongest XV, but the reality is that we are almost never able to put out that team. Some teams will be a lot weaker than the ideal, others will be quite close.

I think the players also have considerable pride- none of them goes out to give less than their all, regardless of the challenge. They may be young, inexperienced or outclassed, but they will try their best until the final whistle. This said, they are also realistic, and they must know that some games are going to be much bigger tests than others. So I don’t think that a team which is quite a long way from our first choice will necessarily go out on the pitch somewhere like Welford Road and assume it will win. It will certainly bloody try, though!

4. Fatigue and Probability of Injury. We have to rest some of the international players anyway, and no professional can play upwards of 30 high intensity games in a season without starting to feel stiff, sore and tired. So to get the best performance over a long season, we have to give the players some rest. Also, the game is a form of Russian roulette- each player faces a significant chance of injury in every match. So, the less you play, the less the chance of injury. 

5. Fixtures Later in January. After Tigers, we have a home Premiership game against Saracens, top of the Table and due to visit on January 8^th, followed by two crucial but difficult games in the Heineken Cup, where we definitely still have a decent chance of progressing out of the Group stages. But away to Cardiff and at home to Toulouse won’t be simple. Even if the Heineken quarter finals are a long shot (and personally I don’t think they are), we are still playing for a “lucky loser” entry into the Challenge Cup quarters.

So, if you are Kingsley Jones, you have to balance all that up and decide what to do. What would I do? Well, I’d have done what he did. I would husband my resources for games where we have a reasonable chance of a good return, whether that’s four or five points, or progression in the Heineken. I’d trust some of the less well known players in the squad to take the opportunity of, and responsibility for, the Leicester game, and rest a good number of my key players for the higher priority games ahead.

And, right now, I would feel justified by the fairly narrow win against Quins the following week- if we had put out a stronger side against Tigers and lost someone through injury, or all just been a little bit off through fatigue, we could easily have lost that Quins game, and then we would have been right in the smelly stuff. My short term concerns will have been eased by the Sarries postponement, but that’s still a headache I need to deal with later. The next couple of weeks will show how right or wrong Kingsley (and I) are, but right now I am positive.

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