HEINEKEN CUP FINAL: GAVIN CUMMISKEYgets an insight into the club from team manager, Ulster's Paul Shields and former club player, Leinster's Dave Quinlan
LOCAL NORTHAMPTON lad Martin Bayfield brought the house down as master of ceremonies at the recent Irish Rugby Union Players’ Association (Irupa) awards in Dublin. Having won over the crowd with his quick wit, Bayfield then spent much of the evening throwing verbal digs at the largely Leinster populated ballroom.
Along the way the giant, former Lions lock conceded there was little else to do in his market town of 200,000 people but follow the rugby.
Centring a social life around the football side, The Cobblers, is hardly an enticing alternative considering their recent 16th place finish in League Two so Franklin’s Garden tends to be a hive of activity come the weekend.
Former Leinster centre Dave Quinlan played 34 matches for Northampton from 2005 to ’07 before an injury-enforced retirement on the advice of a neurosurgeon. “I noticed pretty quickly you have a particular status if you play rugby in Northampton,” said Quinlan. “It must be what it is like for Brian O’Driscoll to walk down the streets of Dublin. A Northampton Saint in Northampton is somebody. Rugby is the focal point of the whole town. The loyalty and commitment of the supporters is pretty impressive as well.”
The club also turns a profit, thanks primarily to the guidance of local businessman Keith Barwell who was recognised with an OBE, in part for the millions he has invested in the club to ensure its survival once professionalism arrived 15 years ago. Rebuilding the stadium in 2002 and then developing it in 2005 are part of his legacy. Barwell’s son Leon recently took over as chairman of the only English club to run at a surplus in every year since 2001.
“Only themselves and Leicester are turning a profit every year,” Quinlan adds. “The infrastructure and facilities are in place. Even how they use the ground outside rugby, they generate some pretty good revenues.”
Franklin’s Garden turns away up to 2,000 supporters per game but further developments are in the pipeline to avoid the shift to stadium:mk stadium for future home European quarter- and semi-finals.
After banking over 100 caps for Ulster, Paul Shields was signed as a replacement hooker due to the enforced retirement (temporarily as it turned out) of Steve Thompson in 2007 and to assist the development of Dylan Hartley. By the time a neck injury curtailed his career less than two years later, he was already ingrained in the fabric of the place to seek and gain the position of team manager.
“When I arrived I knew there was a fair chance they would get relegated but I was still so impressed by everything I saw that I knew it would be one year in Division One and then back up,” said Shields. “I just saw it as an opportunity to be part of the rebirth of something special.”
And so it has proved. Mainly due to Jim Mallinder’s appointment as head coach in the summer of 2007. The clarity of the roadmap Mallinder laid out is what brings Northampton to the cusp of replicating their previous European success in 2000.
“There was a lot of quality in the squad that went down, like Tom Smith, Ben Cohen and Sean Lamont,” Shields explains. “But the arrival of Jim and then Dorian West (who Mallinder previously worked alongside at the RFU Academy) has seen the squad moulded into a team that is now competing on all fronts.”
The surprising drop out of the Premiership could also be attributed to the uneven balance of Kiwi, including Carlos Spencer, and English players becoming a constant source of tension that was inevitably reflected on the pitch. “By all accounts Jim Mallinder runs a really tight ship,” said Quinlan. “He is maybe not quite as gruff from an exterior point of view but I definitely sense similarities between himself and (Michael) Cheika; they are pretty ruthless in their dealings with players. If you don’t fit their jigsaw you are out basically.”
Young talent like incumbent England fullback Ben Foden and lock Christian Day were plucked from Mallinder’s former club Sale, while the Ulster connection was enhanced by signing backrowers Neil Best and Roger Wilson, who starts at number eight today.
“In the two years Bestie was here he had a massive impact,” Shields revealed. “He added a steel to the side that set an example to everyone else about what is required to go to the next level. Roger has been a model of consistency to the young lads. He is phenomenal in that he rarely misses a game. Always at the top level week in, week out. He has been brilliant for us.”
Interestingly, Quinlan’s replacement at the club was another powerful number 12 from Dublin named Jimmy Downey. Despite coming from Belvedere College, Downey was barely mapped in Irish rugby, even overlooked for underage national sides. It is well documented Leinster, Connacht and Munster all turned him away from their door before Calvisano gave the genial centre an opportunity to bolster his highlight reel.
“He has done a great job for Northampton,” said Quinlan. “He is not Brian O’Driscoll but he is an extremely effective ball carrier, very strong defender and a competent lad, not someone who gets fazed by playing against big names. I’d imagine he will be very excited about this challenge.”
As interesting a subplot as Downey is, even the sight of him ploughing through D’Arcy or O’Driscoll will not be enough to yield a Saints victory. No, that will be about Northampton coming of age in every department.
And that means somehow recovering from last weekend’s mauling at the hands (and fists in Chris Ashton’s case) of the Leicester Tigers at Welford Road.
But Shields believes the lessons of losing to the Tigers and particularly the two raucous battles against Munster last year has provided them with the tools to make that final leap.
“Going to Thomond Park was a totally different experience than our young lads had experienced before. For Courtney, Ashy, Fodes and Lee Dickson it was invaluable. And we pushed them very close in the group match and then to go back and compete with them in the quarter-final, okay, they won comfortably by the end but we matched them for long periods of the game so we knew the level we had to go to compete or go beyond that. For us, we want to go beyond that.”
Captain paints picture
For the people of Northampton town today's Heineken Cup final is the biggest rugby match since May 27th, 2000. That was the day Pat Lam's Northampton beat Munster 9-8 at Twickenham.
The importance of that first European title and, as a result, today's game was brought home to the Saints' young captain Dylan Hartley this week: "I was talking to my painter the other day – he was painting my house – and he said, 'I can remember 10 years ago when we won it, it was one of the best days of my life.' He said the whole town stood still and he told me about when they brought the cup back (to Franklin's Garden). There were seven or eight thousand people.
"He saw a sparkle down the tunnel and then the players brought it up the pitch. The whole town was going mad. That's the best thing about it. It is about the community. It is about the club. That's exciting."
