Hard division
How Saracens will find life in lower league
Sometimes in sport, a club need to be brought low to discover their soul. Think of Juventus, for whom only relegation could burst the Grand Old Lady’s bubble of entitlement and hubris. If Saracens are to embark on the same harsh path of reflection next season, then the greatest lessons will be gleaned here at Ampthill’s Dillingham Park, a ground carved out of bare Bedfordshire earth and accessible only via a walk through the woods. When Maro Itoje negotiated his lucrative image rights deal, this was not quite the away day he had in mind.
While Saracens are suffering demotion as the price for their dishonour, Ampthill are rising from the seventh tier of English rugby to the second in just 13 years. Still, their elevation has hardly furnished the accoutrements of glamour. There is not even a temporary stand, merely a gentle hillside where fans can commune with their border collies. “Some people describe this as village rugby,” one club official smiles.
Drop one tier below the top flight in football and you can still be competing in 25,000-seat stadiums. Make the same shift in rugby and you can, as at Ampthill, find yourself encircled by open fields. The visit of Doncaster yesterday showed the Dillingham ground at its roughest and dourest: a dank mist in the air, a sky greyer than most battleships, and a breeze that was about as soothing as on a hike through the Urals.
For Saracens, memories of Lyon and Clermont-Ferrand, scenes of their most recent Champions Cup forays, will never have felt more distant. And for all that Owen Farrell, out of his natural diplomacy, might refuse to entertain talk of deserting a sinking ship, an afternoon at this austere outpost would surely give him pause.
Mouritz Botha, Ampthill’s assistant coach, will watch with complex emotions when the Premiership’s fallen idols run out on his patch. For five years he was a Saracens stalwart, with his talents at lock helping to produce a Premiership title in 2011, then an England call-up the next year.
He has observed the chaos engulfing Allianz Park, in the wake of multiple salary-cap breaches, with nothing but pain.
“My overriding feeling is sadness for everyone involved,” Botha reflects.
“Yes, a dossier has been released on what the club did, but I think there’s still a lot that people don’t know. Saracens are an amazing club. In my experience, they have almost set a blueprint for how to treat employees.”
When Juventus sunk to Serie B as a penance for the calciopoli match-fixing scandal, it had almost a cleansing effect. In 2006, the team started in the second division on minus nine points, but stars such as Alessandro del Piero and Gianluigi Buffon did not treat trips to Frosinone or Mantova as beneath them, winning promotion back to the elite at the first attempt. Anybody connected to Saracens trusts this is a template that will be followed, that short-term agonies will bring a long-term benefit.
“Their young players will get a lot of good game time here in the Championship,” Botha argues. “They’ll come back bigger, hungrier, more determined than ever. The Premiership have poked the bear – and it will come back to bite them.”
Even with only 12 teams, the Championship is a place of endless eclecticism, ranging from Jersey to Cornwall, from Newcastle Falcons, with a capacity of over 10,000, to tiny Ampthill, the cradle of rugby in the raw, where supporters can combine match-going with walking the dog.
Still, Ampthill staff take a deep pride in how much has been accomplished with so little. Paul Turner, the redoubtable coach and a former Wales fly-half, says: “I’m proud of the people who are working behind the scenes, of the infrastructure. People come here and laugh when they walk through the woods to the game. But we have worked hard on this.
“We have one of the better surfaces in our league. Now, I hope the crowds will get bigger. Soon enough, we will have a certain team coming down from the Premiership. It’s a big thing for everyone who has got us here.”
Rugby is a tight-knit world, and Ampthill know better than to start goading Saracens about the implausible encounter that awaits. Turner lives next door to the disgraced club’s training club in St Albans, while Ampthill continue to take Saracens players on loan. “We have a great relationship with them,” Turner says. “I’m convinced they’ll get through it.”
If the setting seems quaintly parochial, the ingredients for Ampthill’s success are anything but. The revolution was forged, at least in part, by a quartet from Tonga, spearheaded by former Northampton loosehead Soane Tonga’uhia. While Maama Molitika is 45, he can still command the back row on his day, and Tonga’uhia brings priceless technical acumen through his dual role as forwards coach. Throw in the insights of Canada’s James Pritchard, who runs the backs division, and it is a surprisingly cosmopolitan blend.
Turner, who led Newport Gwent Dragons for six years, plainly has the pedigree to propel Ampthill yet further. Even with his team comfortably eclipsing Doncaster, he was still loudly berating players for loose kicks, shoddy technique, or failing to spot outside runners. The motivation worked, with Ampthill withstanding a concerted fightback to win 30-26. “I went through so many emotions there,” says Turner. “I suppose, in a season of news, that it ’s another famous day for this club.”
Saracens, the guests to come, have been defined more by days of infamy of late. An outing at Ampthill promises to be their most vivid reminder yet of how far they have tumbled. If nothing else, it will test their sloganising about “humility”, a virtue often preached but seldom practised, to the very limit.
‘Their young players will get a lot of good game time. They will come back bigger and hungrier than ever’