Tactically, Bates is driving for wins

Feb 19 2010 by Nick Purewal, The Journal

Whoever the hooker, Newcastle’s No 2 has scored Falcons’ last five tries, but the powerful driving maul is only the tip of their evolutionary iceberg. Steve Bates tells Nick Purewal an emphasis shift is no revolution

TOBY Booth brings his talented but suffering London Irish side to the North East tomorrow, no doubt with his favourite reminder ringing in their ears.

Upwardly-mobile head coach Booth often talks of ‘earning the right to go wide’, but he does not overuse it. In fact, in the modern game, fighting for the ability to move the ball away from contact is a pre-requisite of Premiership rugby.

So no matter how many times Booth utters those words, it will never be too often, and it will be never be less pertinent.

Former Wasps and England scrum-half Steve Bates might not use the exact same phrase with the regularity of his Irish counterpart, but the sentiments are the same, and the two men share similar rugby philosophies. Bates and Booth get on well, stemming from their time coaching the Saxons at the Churchill Cup, where no doubt they had just cause to run through their myriad rugby ideas.

Irish are clearly far further down the squad development line than Bates’ men, after their exploits battling all the way to last term’s Premiership final.

But the Falcons stole a priceless 15-11 win over the Irish at the Madejski Stadium back in October, and Booth’s boys are sat fourth in the table after a home defeat at the hands of struggling Bath last weekend too.

Irish lost Shane Geraghty to Northampton in the summer, and so far Ryan Lamb has failed to fill the bleached-blond outside-half’s boots in Reading, while Coventry-born Geraghty himself has struggled to assert any dominance over Stephen Myler at the Saints.