London Welsh
Plymouth Albion v London Welsh Preview
By Mark W-J
September 16 2010
For the players and die-hard travelling supporters of London Welsh there's a second trip in two weeks to the south-west this Saturday as we visit Plymouth Albion's Brickfields. Having moved from Beacon Park in 2003, they've developed the ground to hold nearly 8,000 spectators - the record gate was 6,871 against Exeter two years ago, while over 4,000 saw the Chiefs and Pirates (twice) last term.
A glance at the league table would suggest that now is a good time to visit Plymouth, with our hosts sitting just one place and one point above Birmingham Solihull in 11th place. But, as is often the case, the bald facts don’t tell the whole truth. Yes, the opening day defeat at Bedford was a horror show, with eight tries conceded in the 53-3 mauling. But seven days later, in their only home game thus far, they collected a losing bonus point against Worcester: Albion even led for the best part of 60 minutes before Richard Hill summoned his international half-backs, Andy Williams and Andy Goode, to steady the ship and guide their team to a 26-19 win. Hill, of course, did something similar at Old Deer Park in January 1998, when Welsh – then leading Jewson National One - trailed his Gloucester side 22-18 with less than 15 minutes remaining of our Tetley’s Bitter Cup fourth round tie. On that occasion the half-backs were Scott Benton and Mark Mapletoft, and they provided the platform from which Rob Jewell and Dave Sims crossed to complete a 34-18 win.
Last Sunday, Albion faltered on the road once again, conceding another try-bonus in their 37-16 defeat at Nottingham. Yet despite our own bonus-point win at Meadow Lane on the opening weekend, and regardless of the two clubs’ relative standings, any London Welsh fan knows better than to take Plymouth lightly. Our trip to Cornwall a fortnight ago was something of a reality check, and our last trip to Brickfields resulted in a 13-13 draw courtesy of Aled Thomas’ last-gasp try, a score which his fellow players voted ‘try of the season’. Unfortunately, Aled’s touchline conversion bounced back of the post, meaning that, coupled with their stunning 26-12 (four tries to two) win at ODP last November, Albion were one of only two Championship teams who Welsh failed to beat last season. And their 55-7 victory at ODP in December 2006 remains our heaviest home defeat and the equal-second most points conceded by London Welsh in league rugby.
The Albion supporters are getting a bit tired of reading the pundits’ opinions about how their side will struggle after supposedly ‘losing their most influential players to better offers’. The list of players who have left the club for the Premiership in recent years in well-documented, and this summer there were at least half a dozen departures to fellow Championship sides, including centre Matt Hopper and captain Kyle Marriott to Pirates, and of course, Liam Gibson to London Welsh. The home fans won’t be too pleased to hear that with two tries in his two league appearances for Welsh, Liam’s already scored as many for Welsh as he did in his last 12 appearances for his former employers. While the names of the newcomers may not be as recognisable as those they’ve replaced, there is plenty of Championship experience in the list; former Bees back, Cameron Mitchell, scored his first try for the club at Nottingham; hooker Gavin O’Meara has made his way from ODP; No 8 Sam Hocking has stepped-up a level from Launceston, having scored 18 tries in the last two seasons since the All Blacks’ relegation; and former Pirates favourite Aisea Havili is apparently awaiting clearance on his work permit.
If there’s one thing you can say about Plymouth’s DoR, Graham Dawe – and after 11 years in the hot-seat on top of a playing career spanning almost 30 years, plenty has been said about the man – it’s that his gift for identifying and developing talented young players is second to none. Glenn Delaney rightly gets plaudits for number of players who have left Nottingham for the bright lights of the Premiership and Magners League over the last two to three years, but Dawe has been doing this for more than a decade. And each year, as the fans tire of reading, the best players get snapped-up by their rivals – yet it’s Dawe who identified them and put them in the shop window in the first place. There are those who say that the club should have dispensed with his services three or four years back, when the year-on-year league position started to tail-off, but it’s no coincidence that the fall in standards on the pitch is directly proportional to the investment in the ground and facilities, which has caused investment on the playing side to be scaled-back accordingly. Now, after four or five years of frugal planning, Albion have the facilities which could, with just a bit of fine-tuning, meet Premiership standards. The flip-side, of course, is that they don’t currently appear to have the squad to achieve that goal on the pitch, only securing a place in last season’s promotion play-offs in the final round of league fixtures. The fixture computer has given them arguably the toughest opening month of all Championship clubs this season, and they’ll be smiling knowingly at those ‘experts’ foolish enough to predict a comfortable away win this weekend.
For those fans unable to make the long journey to Plymouth, there is league rugby at ODP on Saturday when the Amateurs entertain Old Actonians in Herts and Middlesex One (kick-off 3pm). The division comprises 12 teams, including Saracens’ and Harlequins’ Amateurs and five Old Boys’ clubs. In the early years of London Welsh, the Old Boys’ clubs provided regular opposition; the fixtures ceased fifty years ago, in our 75th anniversary season, mainly due to the decline in standards of the opposition which had, in the late-18th and early 19th-century been of the highest quality. The first meeting was with Old Leysians, in 1887-88, in which we scored our only try of that entire season; the opposition scored nine that afternoon. The last fixture was an equally one-sided demolition of Old Cranleighans in 1960-61, although we did knock Gloucester Old Boys out of the cup twice in the mid-90s.
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Thank You
Take Care SJ
Tauranga Branch
New Zealand
AAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLBBBBBBBBBBIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNN
17/09/2010 11:12
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010:09:18:16:26:25 by nld.
Mackey injury was worrying but at least he was back on his feet by the end of the game.
Good performances across the team, those on the coach home picked Mills, Breeze and Pittman as key players today.
Rotherham will be tough and another big test for the pack.
Roll on Roth.
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