With two games coming up the space of four to five days, Gallagher Premiership Directors of Rugby face some difficult decisions as they look to strike the right balance between player welfare and the pursuit of what could be vital points in the race for the title.
Take Gallagher Premiership leaders Exeter, for example. They face two of their main title rivals in quick succession with a notoriously difficult trip to Sale Sharks, on Friday evening, followed by an away game at Bristol Bears, another of the teams in line for silverware, on Tuesday.
Does Chiefs supremo Rob Baxter go to the AJ Bell Stadium all guns blazing and try and strike a potentially damaging psychological blow to a side already on a downer after their dispiriting loss to Harlequins in Round 14, or would he be better off keeping his powder dry for the Bristol encounter?
He could go either go horses for courses with his selection and field the best team to nullify the threat of the opposition, mix-and-match his 23 with some fringe players alongside frontline troops, or name a ‘second-string’ outfit for one game and a full-strength one for the other.
Directors of Rugby are paid the big bucks to get these type of decisions right and Baxter is shrewder than most when it comes to season planning. He comes from farming stock, remember, and in that industry contingency plans are everything when you don’t know what the weather is going to throw at you.
In the Chiefs’ Championship promotion-winning season of 2009/10, the former No.8 opted to rest some of his frontline players around Christmas time, knowing that losses then would be collateral damage worth taking come the end-of-season play-offs.
Sure enough, they fell to defeats to Plymouth Albion, Bristol and London Welsh over the festive period only to come back stronger at the business end of the campaign and break Bristol’s hearts in a never-to-be-forgotten play-off final.
Pat Lam is equally street-wise but faces the same dilemma. Does he go to Gloucester looking to get the win that would potentially put distance between themselves and Sale, who are currently one point behind, or does he risk the wrath of supporters and take a gamble with the Gloucester game and go for broke against the Chiefs in the next fixture instead?
For outright punters looking for value in the outright markets, the 5/1 about Bristol might be worth taking. They are a side with momentum and have the depth of squad required to meet this challenge head on.
