With round 21 fixtures still to be confirmed, I think we will really benefit from not being involved in the European knockout stages
The six fixtures are:
Bath v Gloucester
Bristol v Leicester
Exeter v London Irish
Harlequins v Wasps
Northampton v Sale
Worcester v Saracens.
The following matches involve Premiership Clubs between 18th and 21st September:
18th - Bristol v Dragons
19th - Leinster v Saracens
20th - Leicester v Castres & Exeter v Northampton
21st - Sale v Quins (Premiership Cup Final)
My Virigin Tivo Box's listings suggest that Bath v Gloucester will be on Tuesday 22nd September at 5.30pm, but has no other matches listed that day or the following day.
When you factor in possible semi finals, the window to schedule matches gets even smaller:
Bristol face either an away trip to Bordeaux or a home tie v Edinburgh.
Saracens face an away trip to Clermont or Racing 92
Leicester face an away trip to Toulon or a home tie v Scarlets
Exeter face a home tie against Toulouse or Ulster
Northampton face an away trip to Toulouse or Ulster.
With any away European tie sides are required to travel the day before the game.
In terms of how this affects Wasps, I would anticipate Bristol's semi-final being scheduled for either the Friday night or Saturday and Leicester's semi final being scheduled for Saturday or Sunday, which when you factor in travel leaves a very short window to cram in a Premiership match between the two. An outside bet could be Wednesday 23rd.
Exeter will probably beat Northampton, and the fixtures suggest their semi final will be on the Sunday. By my reckoning, when you consider Sale's match on the Monday night, the Northampton v Sale game could be on Thursday 24th or the week after. Given Exeter's squad size and no travel, I'd anticpate their London Irish match to be on Wednesday 23rd.
Failing that, these matches could be fitted in the week after.
That leaves our match v Quins. Given the Premiership Cup final on the 21st, I think it's likely to be at some point around the 25th to 27th. That means after Sunday's match we will have a week off and a much less congested run in to the end of the season when compared to Exeter , Bristol and Sale.
Topic: Round 21 (Read 688 times)
Always a Wasp