Tigers beat the drop!
9:09am Thursday 23rd March 2006 in Sport By Peter Collins
Lifeline, safety-net, Sedgley Park president Geoff Roberts prefers to call the RFU's decision to freeze relegation this season in National League Division One, in order to extend its size from 14 to 16 clubs, as a slice of overdue good luck.
Whatever it is called, it keeps the Tigers in rugby union's second tier for a third successive season.
However, true to form it wasn't from the horse's mouth' that Roberts received the good news last Friday, rather via a couple of circuitous routes.
"I first heard about it from one of our players, Richard Senior, who had received a text from one of the officials at his former club, Doncaster, he then passed it on to me," he explained.
"Then, during the day I had Rugby Times on. One of its reporters had spoken to an RFU official who had confirmed the decision and they passed it on to me too.
"But we have still not received official notification from the RFU themselves, although they posted it on their website."
"We have always been in favour of promotion and relegation, although this season in particular we have not had the rub of the green.
"We have not had that bit of luck other clubs have enjoyed and have missed out on at least 10 points that we would have had otherwise.
"It doesn't matter whether it was a refereeing decision, a dropped pass or a foot in touch.
"So I prefer to look at this decision as our season's slice of overdue good luck.
"Despite our league position we had not resigned ourselves to being relegated. We have remained positive and committed to getting ourselves out of the relegation positions and are confident we still can.
"We have remained upbeat and optimistic and this decision really has changed nothing.
"We will go out on Saturday afternoon expecting to beat Exeter.
"It doesn't matter whether there is promotion and relegation or not, pride dictates that you do not want to finish in the bottom two. We are still looking to avoid it, but now it is for different reasons.
l Turn to Page 65 "If we had not beneffited from this decision we would have accepted relegation with good grace and turned our attentions on an immediate return to National One at the end of next seasson. There is no other way to deal with it."
However, the good news comes at a financial cost.
"The money the RFU gives National One clubs will remain the same, which in effect means it will be diluted further by the two additiional teams, and we stand to loose about £23,000," he confirmed "To offset this we will have to look at our recruitment policy and probably implement certain cost-cutting measures.
"But it should not affect are current levels of sponsorship and we would not have lost any by being relegated. We have a fairly hard-core sponsorship that is loyal and has been with us form a number of years.
"Obviously still being in National One is a good selling point and may well help us to bring in new sponsorship."
The RFUs decision also allows the club to put right other aspects of its operation.
"In anticiaption of the new season we are addressing the problems we have encountered with our new website - www.sedgleytigers.com - as we have had to prioritise due to what has happened during the season and put our energies into other areas.
"But we realise it is a major marketing tool and as we now have stability on the playing front, we are in the process of ironing out the problems with the site.
"Over the next few weeks there will be a major improvement in how the site is operated. In fact we are looking at developing our whole marketing operation."
He also believes that the club's league predicament - bottom, with five games to go and still six points from safety - has not dictated on-field tactics.
"We've always tried to play attractive, positive rugby, that was the way we beat the Cornish Pirates in our last game," he said.
"In particular we have re-addressed our defensive systems and against the Pirates our defence forced them into making errors, thus creating attacking opportunities for oursleves.
"Maybe a certain degree of pressure has been released by this decision, but we have always tried to play good rugby anyway, so I don't think it will have much of an affect on the way we play until the end of the season.
"The big difference is that these last five games give us a chance to plan for next season both on and off the pitch.
"On the pitch I think some of the coaching methods we use will change, we will certainly be looking at defensive systems differently, and we will introduce things like video training sessions pre-season..
"We have learned so much more this season than we did last, because the second season at this level is far harder than the first, and that has proved true.
"I think subconciously we have relaxed a bit and have therefore experienced a kick up the backside. Now we have to put right what we have done wrong."
That should begin with recruitment.
"We have a core of players we would like to keep and players we would want here next season in the back of our minds," he said.
"So in these last few games we will look at the ones we want to retain in more depth and continue to pursue the ones we want to recruit.
"We have already begun that process and we are discussing our options, looking around and who is available.
"I can confirm that Phil Jones will be with us again next seaason.
"He was contracted to us anyway but we are now in discussions to extend that contract even further. He his happy here, he does not want to move and so that is a big step forward for us. Jimmy Ponton has also expressed a desire to remain with us and we are chatting with him about it at the moment.
"In fact we are now beginning the process of sitting down with the entire squad with regard to next season.
"We also want to find out what the situation is going to be with loan players from Sale Sharks.
"Staying in National One is a massive plus in regard to that, in fact I think if we had gone down it would have been in serious jeopardy. But even so we have to make sure the agreement is right for us, otherwise it is not worth pursuing.
"We need to have in place an agreement regarding availability, otherwise there is not much point in having the deal in the first place.
"We have been unfortunate this season in that both Sean Cox and Adam Newton played just one game for us before 'Coxy' was called up to the England Under 21 team, and 'Dog' was recalled by the Sharks as cover for injuries.
"By the time we could have him back the signing deasdline had past, although Coxy should now be with us until the end of the season.
"But it is these kind of situations we need to avoid."
Whoever comes, whoever goes, if lessons are not learned it doesn't matter who is wearing a Tigers shirt or whose logo is on it "Having been given the chance to stay in National One, we intend to learn from the mistakes we have made this season, and If we mess up next season we will deserve to go down," he added.
