Brendan Gallagher: Why I’ve learned to love the Premiership play-offs

How quickly time moves on and blazing rows of yesteryear recede. For many it was the blackest of days midway through the 2002-03 season when Premiership Rugby suddenly decided that henceforth the winners of the play-offs, which they had only introduced the previous season to almost universal disapproval, would henceforth be deemed the champion club of all England, rather than the team that finished top of table at the end of a long nine-month season.
It all seemed so very wrong. To be a champion club surely there had to be a requirement to prove yourself throughout a long demanding season. Home and away, on fast tracks and in six inches of mud, in September heat waves and the arctic cold of midwinter. Wind, frost, slime, games under floodlights, lucky refereeing calls and bad decisions. Friday night matches, Sunday lunchtime kick offs, the entire shooting match.
By definition that ability to endure and thrive for the long haul was what set you apart. Surely?
There was also the thorny issue that the Premiership appeared to be following, lemming-like, Rugby League’s lead by mimicking the play-offs and was that entirely wise old boy? I have much less sympathy with that Luddite view. Necessity has always been the mother of invention for Rugby League which has been forced to aggressively fight its corner and Union has learned much from them in terms of marketing the game and indeed the physical preparation of players.
And that learning process continues. Mark my words Rugby Union, dogged down by the endless use of TMO for all manner of decisions, will soon revert to the report system for suspected episodes of foul play. Unless it is a clear sending-off offence, make note of the minute look at it more closely and get on with the game. But I digress.
The Premiership play-offs made a very shaky start, in my opinion, with Wasps‘ uncanny ability to time their challenge late to walk off with the silverware at the expense of those who had finished above them in the table doing much to enrage those who were already deeply suspicious of the new format. That formidable brains trust of Warren Gatland, Shaun Edwards and Lawrence Dallaglio had immediately done the maths and worked out the modus operandi.
It was just so bloody confusing and counter intuitive. For the first two seasons remember the play-offs were just a money-making, flag-waving, beano with the regular season table-toppers still being considered the real champions. In season 2000-2001 Leicester topped the pile and won the play-offs which lulled us into a sense of security because the following season Tigers topped the table but, damn it, didn’t Gloucester go and win the play-offs. Who were, actually, England’s Premier club? Fans need to know these things.
Then came the quantum leap for the 2002-03 season, the sudden decision mid-season to crown the play-off winners as champions. But again it was flawed and unfair. Gloucester were the dominant team by some distance all season but then had to sit and twiddle their thumbs for three weeks until the final, when they played the winners of the Northampton v Wasps play-off. Unsurprisingly battle hardened Wasps swept into the final on a surge of momentum and just kept going. Shedheads still cry into their beer at the memory.
This system continued until the 2005-6 – during which time Wasps won three titles on the bounce without once finishing top of the table – before a much more equable system was introduced with two semi-finals. First plays fourth, second plays third. At last a credible template had been found and as the system has settled down the subtleties and strengths of the play-offs have emerged and, for once, we should give due credit to the Premiership Rugby Board. There I said it.
The play-offs now work on a number of levels for me. Firstly they have brought fairness to proceedings. It was plainly unacceptable in the professional era that clubs such as Leicester, Wasps, Saracens, Gloucester and Northampton – who regularly contribute large numbers of players to the England set-up be penalised for their patriotic duty. I wouldn’t lose a second’s sleep over clubs who choose to sign overseas players who also miss segments of the season – that is their call and those well signposted absences must be factored in – but English teams contributing mightily to the England cause should never find themselves at a disadvantage.
The system that exists now, as if by some strange alchemy and a good deal of trial and error, seems to work. Most of the big boys do suffer to a greater or lesser extent during the international windows but there always seems to be just about enough Premiership rugby in between times when they will have their full complement available and are able to make good the damage and climb back into the top four.
The occasional newsworthy ‘shock defeat’ by those sides during the international windows does the league no great harm either because rugby is a sport grievously short of upset wins to celebrate. Overall, however, I’m struggling to think of a deserving top team in recent years that has missed out on the play-offs altogether. There has been no great travesty of justice, a typically English compromise has been devised that works. It just does.
The play-off system has also wonderfully animated the final third of the season. We tend to view many past seasons through rose-tinted glasses but the truth is that many old style Championships quickly narrowed down to a two-horse race and, indeed, there were even a couple of pretty routine solitary marches to the title. Many finished with a whimper, not a bang.
Now, as the league enters the last seven or eight rounds, there are usually the same number of teams thinking they could claim one of those top-four spots and once the Six Nations finished the Premiership rugby takes on a hugely competitive edge. Everybody shifts up a gear, there is so much still to play for. I absolutely love April and early May in the Premiership.
And, finally, it’s not hard to warm to the showpiece final at Twickenham every year in which English club rugby can unambiguously take centre stage and sell itself. It has quickly become a sell-out gala occasion and rightly so and the combatants have served up some very meaty fare recently, spiced up with the odd dollop of controversy.
When the politics are put aside and the smoke of international rugby has receded for a while, the fact remains that top level club rugby is the lifeblood of the game in this country and deserves a fitting gala occasion.
It took a while but the play-offs have won me over. You don’t finish in the top four of a 22-game season and then win two of the highest pressure knock-out cup games you can imagine by accident. You have to prove your steadfast qualities first and then you have to “go again” and display real panache and courage to win two huge sudden death games. Bring it on.