Yorkshire trio need to quickly transform fortunes

The regular season is about building towards the promotion play-offs – was another line trotted out, week in, week out.

Time and again Diccon Edwards, Andre Bester and Brett Davey reached for the regular-season hymn sheet, climbed the stairs to the pulpit and began to preach.

It is not necessarily their fault, the Championship season induces head coaches into a phoney war for six months before the real issues are up for debate.

With a number of games meaningless, their focus has to be on the play-offs.

Yet as the regular season ends and the congregation turns its attention to the second and decisive phase of the RFU Championship season, it is time to ask just what momentum Yorkshire’s representatives have gained and how solid the foundations they have built over the last 22 games.

The answers are: not very much, and creaky.

Leeds Carnegie, Rotherham Titans and Doncaster Knights have finished the 12-team league portion of the season in sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively.

That equates to mid-table to lower mid-table.

If they were to repeat that feat next year under a new system the Rugby Football Union is considering, which would see only the top four teams contest the promotion play-offs and the bottom four the relegation post-season, the campaigns of the Yorkshire teams would be over. At the end of February.

There is little money below the Premiership as it is. The loss of gate receipts for the final two months could prove fatal.

That, alas, is an issue for another day.

For the question of whether Yorkshire’s triumvirate have the ability to negotiate their way through the play-offs and towards promotion is the more pressing concern.

On the face of it, mid-table finishes in a traditional league campaign where every team has been played twice would suggest they are not good enough, and quite frankly, are not deserving of the reward of promotion.

And because of the points system in the play-offs, only Leeds go into the campaign with anything on the board; a solitary point for being the third-ranked team in their pool.

Rotherham and Doncaster have nothing, compared to the three and two points the top seeds will be starting with in less than a fortnight’s time.

How’s that for building blocks?

The question of whether they arrive at the post-season with momentum is equally sobering.

Leeds have been beaten in three of their last five games; Rotherham three times in their last four while Doncaster have ended the season with four straight defeats.

Leeds Carnegie are the most maddening.

Traditionally the side relegated from the Premiership is the powerhouse of the second tier.

The Headingley club won promotion at the first attempt in 2006-07 under Stuart Lancaster and in 2008-09 under Andy Key and Neil Back.

This season they have never looked like promotion material.

They lost four of their first five games under Edwards before a run of seven straight wins saw them threaten the top four.

The cobwebs had been shaken off at last – but it was not to be.

Mediocrity and inconsistency began to stalk a side built on the strength of loan players from the Premiership, whose sporadic absence since the turn of the year exposed the many holes in the Leeds squad.

Edwards placed his faith in the club’s admirable youth policy but the absence of maturity and experience in a number of key areas has been hard to make up.

Leeds remain the strongest of the Yorkshire candidates for promotion this season.

Yet few opponents will fear them, as they should a once-credible Premiership force.

On the flip side, Leeds are confident enough not to be too cautious, and will be aided by a pool that does not contain the division’s most physical sides.

Leeds know their opponents’ weaknesses, but similarly, any vulnerabilities they have will be exposed by equally aware opposition.

In this respect, Edwards’s opposite number at Clifton Lane, Bester, will tell you he has been crafty.

Rotherham eviscerated eventual table-toppers Bristol in October in a stunning performance that will live long in the memory of Titans fans.

Bester’s side climbed to second in the autumn after a terrific run of victories, but the fact that it was only the Spring of a year-long campaign left a nagging doubt.

A place in the top four, and a significant advantage going into the play-offs, was Rotherham’s for the taking.

Yet once the 50-point mark was reached, Bester began switching his squad, fielding his reserves, blooding his fringe players.

The South African feared burn-out among his playing contingent, who had proved the measure of anyone they faced before the turn of the year.

He also sent weakened teams down for the return match at Bristol, not wanting to reveal his full hand in what amounted to a dead rubber, when they could meet the old Premiership warriors when it really mattered.

Rotherham have some momentum, and they will be feared by most clubs, particularly at a wind-swept Clifton Lane.

But last year’s post-season collapse is a memory that is hard to ignore.

When assessing Doncaster, a dose of pragmatism is required.

The Knights do not have the resources of Rotherham, let alone Leeds.

They train only part-time compared to the full-time programme at Clifton Lane and the professional operation of Leeds Carnegie.

Their head coach, Davey, like Edwards, is in his first season in a top job, but did not come from the RFU and Premiership environments in which Edwards was nurtured.

As eighth seeds, and in a pool with Bristol, they are long shots to reach the semi-finals.

Doncaster have shown the ability to ruffle feathers this season and have taken some notable scalps. If they can win a couple of consecutive games, then who knows?

But they won only three times away from Castle Park in the regular season.

The quirk of the second tier is that all that has gone before is rendered irrelevant over the next two months. Any of Yorkshire’s sides can transform their fortunes for the better.

Whether they do will be answered over the coming weeks.

Pool A

Bristol, 3pts

London Welsh, 2pts

Nottingham, 1pt

Doncaster, 0pts

Pool B

Bedford, 3pts

Cornish Pirates, 2pts

Leeds Carnegie, 1pt

Rotherham Titans 0pts

Fixtures

Pool A

Weekend of March 10: London Welsh v Nottingham, Doncaster v Bristol.

Weekend of March 17: Bristol v London Welsh, Nottingham v Doncaster. Weekend of March 24: London Welsh v Doncaster, Nottingham v Bristol.

Weekend of March 31: Bristol v Nottingham, Doncaster v London Welsh.

Weekend of April 14: London Welsh v Bristol, Doncaster v Nottingham.

Weekend of April 21: Bristol v Doncaster, Nottingham v London Welsh.

Pool B

Weekend of March 10: Cornish Pirates v Leeds Carnegie, Rotherham Titans v Bedford.

Weekend of March 17: Bedford v Cornish Pirates, Leeds Carnegie v Rotherham Titans.

Weekend of March 24: Cornish Pirates v Rotherham Titans, Leeds Carnegie v Bedford.

Weekend of March 31: Bedford v Leeds Carnegie, Rotherham Titans v Cornish Pirates.

Weekend of April 14: Cornish Pirates v Bedford, Rotherham Titans v Leeds Carnegie.

Weekend of April 21: Bedford v Rotherham Titans, Leeds Carnegie v Cornish Pirates.