By Mark W-J
January 21 2011

The British & Irish Cup.  An exciting new initiative with the potential to develop into Europe’s third-tier competition, or an unwelcome sideshow, created to plug gaps in the Championship fixture list while overlooking the relative strengths of the clubs involved?  Last season Welsh and Ulster battled to make it to the knockout stages; this year both seem to view it as an unnecessary distraction.

The inaugural competition was a step into the unknown for many participants, most notably the English clubs who make-up 50% of the participants.  Of course there were teething problems, but the general view from the powers that be – and of many of the teams involved, particularly those who had experienced the development of the Heineken Cup in the mid-late ‘90s – was that the B&I Cup would evolve to a point where it could be a credible cross-border competition.  The invitation to enter two Italian regions in the Magners League also prompted the suggestion that the remaining Italian club sides should step down from the Amlin Challenge Cup into an expanded B&I Cup, in much the same way as the Welsh and Scottish club sides have.

Yet this season it feels – certainly to London Welsh fans – like the cup is an unwanted diversion.  That may be due to the fact that we contrived to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in our opening fixture against Moseley last month.  Certainly the postponement of the tie with Swansea seven days later meant that any opportunity to right the wrongs of that result was lost, and with recent league results for both ourselves and the clubs immediately above us in the table providing a genuine opportunity for a crack at the top two it was perhaps understandable that many fringe players were given a run-out at Bedford last weekend.

The gravity of that defeat, however, shouldn’t be underestimated: while we operate a small squad and make good use of our relationship with London Irish, the starting XV at Goldington Road had made – on average – nine league appearances each, including six starts apiece, and while the home side had a much more settled look it’s still galling to suffer a 30-point defeat to a side considered one of our closest rivals.  Phil has made the point many times this season that we’re operating a first-team ‘squad’ rather than a first-choice XV, but it seems that many apparently frontline players were rested in anticipation of Wednesday’s rearranged league game at Rotherham – and the less said about that, the better!

Bizarrely both Welsh and Ulster still have the chance to progress to the quarter-finals of the cup, although we’d each need other results to fall in our favour.  The Ravens – as the province’s ‘A’ team is called – won their opening fixture back in October, picking-up a bonus point in a 32-12 win at Swansea, but lost 36-22 at Bedford in December before falling to a shock 25-20 defeat at home to Neath last Friday.  But if Welsh emerge triumphant on Saturday and the Blues and Moseley – who followed-up their win at ODP with a second four-try victory at St Helens last weekend – pick up wins at the ‘All Whites’ and at home to the ‘All Blacks’ respectively then our two Championship rivals will be all-but assured of their places in the knockout stages.