Bristol's Chris Booy - a sure-footed chairman in the itchy-footed world of pro sport

Things have been a tad quiet on here of late, for which I apologise. In mitigation, I can only plead time-poverty. Making the transition to freelancer has been demanding, especially when set against the domestic backdrop of the imminent arrival of child number three. Still, at least I'll soon have a complete frontrow at my disposal.

 

I spoke to Bristol chairman Chris Booy just before the new season kicked off to do a piece for The Rugby Paper. In it, Booy spoke about how promotion from the Championship wasn't "the be all and end all" for his club this season. With multi-millionaire financial services big-hitter Steve Lansdown now on board, Booy said the emphasis at the Memorial Ground was on building a squad that would be capable of staying in the Premiership once it got up there, rather than going up and down between divisions like the proverbial courtesan's negligee.

 

Well, with the start Bristol have had, it's a good job promotion isn't the be all and end all.

 

It's been pretty grim so far, with three defeats in their opening five Championship matches. Two of those losses have been at home, the latest a 22-21 reversal against Moseley.

 

But don't strike a line through Bristol's promotion propects just yet. They have a phalanx of players due back from injury, and I liked the cut of  Booy's jib when I spoke to him back in late August. Measured, grounded and pragmatic, I think Booy's chairmanship, buttressed by Lansdown's deep pockets, will make Bristol a force to be reckoned with over the medium term.

 

“Getting promoted is not the be all and end all,” he told me. “We can go again. When we win the Championship, we want to make sure we stay in the Premiership. We don’t want the yo-yoing that we’ve had previously. That was down to financial instability and we don’t have that now. The plan is to build so that when we do get our prize we stay in the Premiership. We are in for the long-term. We are in the best place that the club has been in for a long time."

 

Refreshingly, the level-headed Booy is the perfect antidote to the worryingly expanding breed of impatient, trigger-happy CEOs and chairmen who bin coaches at the first sign of trouble. (Sale's Steve Diamond springs to mind.) Instead of waving the metaphorical axe in head coach Liam Middleton's direction, Booy offers a sympathetic ear.

 

“The head coach position in all sport is a dreadful position," he said. "You have the pressure of the directors’ ambitions on you, and then underneath you have the whole club reliant on the direction you choose. It’s a lonely place to be.

 

“So we have set up a series of mentors and friends of the club so that Liam has that network to help him. We have a young coach and we’ve had conversations with him so he has the best support. You need to get it right.”

How enlightened an approach in this increasingly itchy-footed, cut-throat world of professional sport. But whether Booy will be so sympathetic if things don't pick up for Bristol over the next couple of months is, I suspect, quite another matter.

Premiership Rugby needs consistency on TMOs

I wrote this article for The Rugby Paper at the start of August. A month on, and with the Premiership season starting tomorrow, it would be nice to see some progress here. For the sake of fairness, there surely needs to be equality of technological assistance for the referee across all matches.

Plans to introduce Television Match Officials at all Aviva Premiership matches for the forthcoming season have stalled as clubs ponder whether to stump up the £350,000 needed.


Talks over the use of TMOs at non-broadcast matches have gone quiet since a four-match trial at the end of last season.

Among those leading the push for the blanket use of TMOs are Exeter, but the Chiefs chairman and chief executive, Tony Rowe, says discussions among the Premiership Rugby board have been limited since the trial ended on April 21.

Rowe says Premiership clubs between them already pay over £1 million per season towards elite refereeing, making further costs for TV adjudication difficult for some clubs to bear. He believes the RFU should step in and shoulder some of the financial burden.

Exeter benefited during last season's TMO trial, with a match-winning try at Gloucester awarded to them after it was referred to the TV official.

"We would like to see TMOs at every match," said Rowe. "We would vote for it. TMOs are very important to the game. We have got to have enough strategically-placed cameras.

"After the game at Kingsholm we think it's a must going forward. I think there is widespread support but the issue fora lot of clubs is a financial one - having to pay for all the cameras.

"I don't know how long it would take to introduce. I've not been involved in any discussions since the trial last season."

Explaining why he believes the RFU should chip in, Rowe said: "Well over £1 million a year is paid by Premiership Rugby to the RFU for elite refereeing. At the moment, the money involved has got to come from Premiership Rugby rather than the RFU.

"The RFU wants elite rugby and makes most of its money from elite rugby with events at Twickenham so I think they should [contribute financially]."

Currently, only live Premiership matches broadcast by either Sky or ESPN benefit from TMOs. When Premiership Rugby announced the four-game trial at non broadcast matches last season, it said it was being carried out to help ensure the integrity of the competition.

A Premiership Rugby spokesman said this week: "It is an important innovation and it's something that could be reignited over the next couple of weeks.

"It will be on the agenda at the next Premiership Rugby board meeting in September. It's something that needs to be agreed by all clubs."

The broader use of TMOs is under consideration by the IRB, which in May announced it was considering widening TMOs' jurisdiction so they can rule on incidents of foul play, as well as play leading up to a try.

But Rowe is doubtful whether the Premiership will see the uniform use of TMOs at any point this season.

"If I was a betting man, which I'm not, I'd bet they won't be introduced this season - and that's because there's money involved," he said.

West Country rugby seeks inoculation against 'Welsh flu'

Former England coach Jack Rowell once complained that the Bath side he had just taken charge of suffered "Welsh flu" whenever they crossed the Severn Bridge for a match. Now the West Country side are hoping to leave a few other clubs feeling queasy after signing their own Welsh bruisers.


Wales utility prop Paul James and former Wales U21 lock Dominic Day have both been recruited to give Bath more grunt in the front five. James, who has 38 caps, moved after nine years at Ospreys while Day has moved to The Rec from Scarlets.

And with Ben Morgan 's move from Parc y Scarlets to Gloucester, they represent something of a eastwards migration over the Bridge.

"A lot of the time people here don't understand what Paul and I are saying to each other," laughs Day. "Paul's a Valleys boy and we both have thick accents.

"But Paul is a clever guy and a quality player and it's great to have someone of his experience also joining Bath. I've played against him and I know he doesn't take a backwards step."

Day and James are the latest Welsh players to head to either England or France following the introduction of a £3.5 million salary cap on the Welsh regions' player budgets.

But Day doesn't believe the move will harm his and James's international prospects. He believes the move to the Premiership will give his play a harder edge.

"As long as I'm playing well and if I am in contact with the Welsh Rugby Union, then we'll see," he said. "Stephen Jones, James Hook and others - a lot of these (international) players are leaving the country. I'm sure Paul still has ambitions to carry on playing for Wales.

"A lot of players are leaving Wales at the moment for one reason or another, and for me personally it was because I felt I needed a change. Things were getting a little stale at Scarlets.

"Part of the reason for coming here is that I want to improve my forwards play. The Premiership's got a reputation as a hard league with big forwards and there are quality sides to play week in week out."

Day admits to having been taken aback by the ferocity of Bath's pre-season programme.

"It's the work rate and the workload; it's been a lot higher this pre-season," he said. "Whether it's weights or contact sessions, it's been tough. I've had to learn a lot."

It might be a steep learning curve, but there is little chance that Day or James have been homesick, at least over the past month, thanks to the distinctly Welsh flavour to Bath's warm-up matches: London Welsh, Ospreys and Cardiff Blues.

The art of the sporting cliche

Cliches abound in sport. If anyone disagrees with that statement, then they clearly aren't snatching defeat from the jaws of victory enough during the business end of the season. Or being forced to dig deep enough during the relegation dogfight.

A classic sporting cliche is all too often trotted out when a squad is unveiled for a match or tour. "There is a nice blend of youth and experience," bleat the pundits. Zzzzzz.

But here's a blend that I think is working at the moment, at least in Bath Rugby's case: traditional one-for- all-and-all-for-one bonding methods and bang-up-to-date training techniques.

I rattled on last week about how Gary Gold and his team are using scientific methods to monitor each player's performance at training. In today's pages, Matt Banahan gives that regime his seal of approval, even though it involves a camcorder being pointed at him should he so much as breathe in the gym.

"We need to make sure we know the difference between fiction and reality," Toby Booth said to me earlier this week when I asked him about the painstaking measurements that are taking place. "Everybody knows where they are, rather than it being reputation and myth."

That's the science. But what about the old school bonding tricks?

On Sunday, the Bath squad were driven to an Army camp in Wales. Since then, the players' mobile phone use has been severely restricted and they've been involved in traditional team-building exercises as well as some frank discussions.

Yesterday they were constructing rafts, lugging cannons around and abseiling off cliffs. Best of all, they were made to attempt some archery while on the cusp of exhaustion.

In the weeks leading up to his departure from Bath, Sir Ian McGeechan kept insisting that the culture at Bath was good and that the foundations were laid for a strong future.

But it seems to me that Gold and his team have set about achieving a wholesale overhaul of the club's ethos. And on the basis of last season's performance, you could argue that that's no bad thing.

A recurring theme from the new coaches is that it's a clean slate and that a line's been drawn in the sand.
Perhaps those cliches have something going for them after all.

Flat out with the repartee - sad day for one-liners as David Flatman retires

Here's David Flatman's valedictory interview with me as he hangs up his boots because of a hand injury. The high-esteem in which the former England, Saracens and Bath prop is held across the game - and by journalists - was captured brilliantly by my fellow south west sports writer Steve Cotton in a fine comment piece in the Western Daily Press. Well worth a read.

Flatman speaks at a press conference in 2009

With a rapier-sharp wit and and a penetrating grasp of the game, Flats was always a joy at mid-week media sessions.
But us journos will still be bumping into him - he's taking up a post within Bath Rugby's communications department, where no doubt we'll all be subjected to his repartee in press conferences. To which I say: fantastic.

Fearns ready to Wade into the fray for England against the Baa-Baas

I'm delighted to see Carl Fearns picked at openside for England's tussle with the Baa-Baas at Twickers on Sunday. Here's an interview I did with him recently and an opinion piece.


You've got to look forward to the prospect of another Bright Young Thing of Engish rugby, Christian Wade, getting his first England start too. No doubt you've seen these tries by the Wasps flyer before, but I don't tire of watching his effortless glide over the turf, particularly when it makes Leicester look like a collection of poorly engineered tug boats:

Bath Rugby go for Gold - Gary Gold

Gary Gold, Bath Rugby's incoming head coach, was hugely impressive when I spoke to him following his appointment earlier this week. He blends candour, experience and a steely edge, all leavened by a dollop or two of humour.
Some hard-nosed Springbok muscle is just the tonic for a Bath side which, too often, just wasn't able to physically assert itself on matches last season.
Club chairman Bruce Craig has also given me his explanation on why Gold was the man for him.
A tonne of reaction, analysis and comment surrounding Gold's appointment is in this week's Bath Chronicle. Sample some of it here.