As good as it gets?

What feels like just a few weeks back – but is in fact nearly a month – I wrote a post entitled ‘Welcome Back‘, which raised more than a cheer for the return of Premiership rugby in the UK. In its infinite wisdom (?) the Premiership had decided to complete the unfinished 2019/20 season by the end of October – a feat the achievement of which would require the playing of midweek matches as well as weekend games – before ploughing directly into the 2020/21 season.

Now – rugby is not like soccer (thanks goodness!). It is a contact sport (of course) and a tough one at that… without the dubious protection of the helmets and other accoutrements that are de rigeur in North American variants of the oval ball game.

This means that the players need more recovery time between fixtures than do top level footballers. Of course – there is also nowhere near as much money in rugby, so squads are smaller and one can’t simply run two fifteens in that way that soccer teams can field multiple elevens.

As a result the clubs are all experiencing a particularly intense period right at the moment. The fact that they had plenty of time to prepare during the lock-down has certainly helped – but it is going to be a long haul to the end of the next season.

From the rugby enthusiast’s point of view the more frequent games are rather wonderful – particularly as we went without for so long. If your club is not going so well – of course – it can get pretty depressing, as losses pile up even more rapidly than usual.

If you are doing well – on the other hand…

The gentle reader has probably guessed where this is going. Our team – Bath – has had a run of form such as it has not experienced since the year that we came to Canada. That year they made it through to the final and only lost to the beastly Saracens (boo!). This time Bath have won all of their games subsequent to the return bar one – and have also acquired a healthy crop of bonus points to boot. With two fixtures to go they are comfortably in the top four – which teams get through to the playoff stage.

Now I don’t want to jinx anything (though it is probably already too late for that). The way the season has panned out only the top five clubs have a chance of making the finals – which means that one of them is going to miss out. Bath does not have the easiest of run-ins and the other four are looking strong.

Still – whichever way it turns out this will have been one of their best seasons in recent memory – and that definitely merits a seriously huge cheer.

Come on you Bath!