It did not take long for the dream to turn into a nightmare: little more than an hour. London Welsh’s return to the top flight started with a home encounter against Exeter, a club that had shown it was possible to overcome financial discrimination and thrive in the Aviva Premiership. It took the Chiefs 68 minutes to reach 50 points.
The match followed what was to become a familiar pattern: London Welsh started brightly, paid for a couple of mistakes and were overrun in the second half. Although they recruited 25 players in the close season after winning promotion the first week in June, the £1.7m they received in central funds, less than half the amount given to the Premiership’s founding clubs, meant few had proven pedigree and the Exiles have consistently lacked a bench stocked to make an impact in the second half of matches.
London Welsh, whose Sundayfixture on Sunday at Newcastle, one of two clubs not totally clear of the relegation zone, holds perhaps the final hope of salvation, are in danger of not only becoming the second team to go through a Premiership campaign without a victory, after Rotherham 11 years ago, but finishing with the fewest points. The Titans finished with three in 2003-04, the same as Bedford four years earlier, but the Blues, in the days before bonus points, had secured a victory.
The Exiles have one point, thanks to the four tries they scored at Bath in September. All 12 of their Premiership defeats have been in double figures: they have conceded 76 tries and 538 points while scoring 12 and 102 respectively. Where their opponents take less than two minutes to score a point, London Welsh need nearly 10.
At this stage in their only other Premiership campaign two years ago, they had scored twice as many points and conceded not much more than half this season’s tally. Though their try total was little better (14) they conceded far fewer (30) and they had four wins along with four losing bonus points.
“The standard in the Premiership is higher than when we were last here,” says the back Seb Jewell, who has missed only one league match this season. “We struggled to come to terms with the pace of it in the first few rounds. Teams were prepared to counterattack us from anywhere in a way they would not have done against other sides and we got torn apart. We have adapted, pushing Harlequins all the way last weekend, but you have to be clinical in this league and mistakes have put us where we are.”
London Welsh concede the bulk of their points in the second half. While they have prevented their opponents from scoring in the first quarter of matches four times, they have only done so once in the final quarter, against Newcastle at the Kassam Stadium in October. They have leaked 101 points in the opening 20 minutes and 182 in the final 20: the decline is progressive, with the figure for the second and third quarters 120 and 135 respectively.
“If we had the funding of the other clubs, the extra money would have allowed us to have brought in 10 or 12 top-class players and made us stronger in the last 20 to 25 minutes of matches,” says the club’s chairman, Bleddyn Phillips. “I have no regrets about winning the play-off to achieve promotion, not even 1%. It has been tough, but we earned the chance to play in the Premiership. It has just shown how difficult it is for a club to make an impact when it suffers such a huge disparity in funding. We were fortunate two years ago because a club in Europe went broke and we picked up a number of good players over the summer. We did not have that benefit this time.”
Attendances at the Kassam have been as disappointing as the results: the club has yet to hit the 5,000 mark. “The gates reflect what has happened on the pitch,” said Phillips. “You become trapped in a vicious cycle, which is another reason why it is important to fight for the principle of equal funding. These are challenging times, but whatever the next few months bring, the club will survive and be strong.”
London Welsh take heart from Sunday’s opponents. Newcastle had lost 20 successive Premiership matches when they beat Exeter last January, a result that kickstarted their season in the league and in Europe. “They showed how a victory can change the picture and we have not given up hope of staying up,” says the team’s coach, Gordon Ross. “There were encouraging signs against Harlequins: we are becoming more consistent and stronger. The longer you are in a match, the more chance you have of winning it and in the last two we have been contending in the final quarter.”
The statistics show that in four of their past five Premiership matches, London Welsh have not collapsed in the final quarter, but having improved defensively since the arrival of Rowland Phillips on the coaching staff, the Exiles need to sharpen their attack. They signed two international half-backs in the summer, Piri Weepu and Olly Barkley, but they struggled to make an impact and the All Black Weepu is now operating at No 10, rather than No 9, with Barkley on the bench.
“Olly has had a couple of injuries,” says Ross. “We signed Tim Molenaar to add experience to our midfield and lost him after only three matches. Recruitment is always difficult for a promoted side because you start weeks behind the rest, but the spirit and attitude of the players has been outstanding. Our position does not reflect the effort that has been put in.”
Welsh are not seeing Sunday as their final chance, but there will not be many more: last season Worcester recorded their first league victory of the campaign at Newcastle in March to drag the Falcons into the relegation mire. “We are not giving up,” says Jewell. “There are livelihoods at stake and as professional players we have a wider responsibility. It will not be the end of the road if we do not win, but it is an important game, an eight-pointer, as the one against London Irish will be. There is still a lot to play for and we still believe.”
