Southend RFC

The end of season is shaping up to be a fascinating one – especially if you are interested in balance sheets and entry criteria.

Doubts over the ability of the Championship title winning side’s ability to be promoted and the continued uncertainty surrounding Wasps financial well-being could prove to be a bigger slap in the boat race for rugby’s authorities than any anti-elite protester could muster while bobbing up and down in the Thames.

Indeed the picture could be murkier than the river itself with matters being settled in the boardroom instead of on the pitch to leave the professional club game in England heading towards an embarrassing finale.

If Wasps fail to find a new buyer, and quick, they will go into administration and be docked 15 points. As things stand this would put them beneath current cellar dwellers Newcastle, who they so happen to meet on the final day of the regular season at Adams Park.

Relegation would be almost inevitable, or so you would think.
While the situation in football is pretty clear cut: finish in the bottom three and go down, in rugby life is a little more complicated.

As we all know, the winner of the Championship has to undergo a rigorous audit of its facilities to see if it is fit and proper to replace the bottom team in the Premiership.

Here’s where Wasps and Newcastle can breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Of the four sides that are all but mathematically certain of making up the Championship semi-final only Bristol will be in a position to take their place at the top table should they win the league.

Neither Bedford, London Welsh nor Cornish Pirates tick all the right boxes, which in the case of the latter has effectively cost them the services of their excellent coach Chris Stirling, who, by the time you read this, will be back home in New Zealand with no immediate hope of having a stadium in the Duchy that meets Premiership requirements.

The chances on Bristol winning the Championship are, in my opinion, no better than an even 4/1 shot. Yes, they finished top of the table at the end of the regular season by a comfortable margin. But since then they have failed to kick on. Even in their victory against London Welsh last weekend, which elevated them above the Exiles to the top of Pool A, they relied heavily on their juggernaut pack to see them home, referee David Rose awarding two penalty tries in the 26-20 win at Old Deer Park. With pitches firming up all the time they will have to show more adventure to win through.

Last season Bristol would have been handed home advantage in the semi-finals for finishing top of the pool, and that would have given their chances of making the final a huge leg up considering they have not been beaten at the Memorial Stadium in the league all season. But the decision to make the semi-finals two-legged affairs, and rightly so, has made this factor pretty much irrelevant, although it usually perceived to be something of an advantage in sport if you get to play at home in the return match.

If Bristol fail to make it through to the final then Wasps or Newcastle can crack open the champagne, because the finalists will be playing for the Championship trophy, full stop, instead of the main prize of promotion.

Should Bristol reach the final, as they did in 2010, then Wasps or Newcastle will not know their fate until the evening of Wednesday May 30th, the date of the Championship final’s second leg, which comes some 25 days after the end of the Aviva Premiership’s regular season. Hardly the stuff of a dramatic climax.
-ENDS-