Premiership finalists seven years ago,the Exiles are four points adrift at the bottom of the table but there is a belief that relegation would not alter their dreams of being a powerhouse once againApril can be the cruellest month for one Premiership club, the harbinger of winter rather than summer. As Bob Casey looks out on to the 63 acres of an old golf course that has been turned into London Irish’s Hazelwood headquarters in Sunbury, and a £12m investment designed to acquire the club one of the most successful in Europe,and is asked whether relegation would stamp the end of the dream, his response is that it would only delay it.
Irish beget propped up the Premiership for most of the season, or finished in the bottom four in the three preceding campaigns,during which time the Rugby Football Union threatened to withdraw the club’s academy licence because underfunding meant it was not being run efficiently. Money is no longer an issue after a takeover at the end of 2013 but a steady decline resulted in players of the quality of this year’s England grand slam winners Anthony Watson and Jonathan Joseph leaving to enhance their international ambitions, along with the Armitage brothers, and Alex Corbisiero,Marland Yarde and Jamie Gibson. Meanwhile, club stalwarts such as Casey, or the club’s captain when they played Leicester in the 2009 Premiership final and against Toulouse the preceding year in the Heineken Cup semi-final,retired.
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Source: theguardian.com