Thompson: It's looking grim for my Saints

Steve Thompson will have to watch this afternoon

as Northampton, the club to whom he has devoted his rugby career, fight to avoid relegation from the top flight of the domestic game.

Thompson, forced to quit

rugby by the serious neck

injury he suffered playing for

Northampton in the Heineken

Cup in January, said: "You’d

have to admit it’s not looking

good for the Saints. We have

to be favourites to go down."

Thompson claims that

Northampton’s plight is down

to the failure of their stars to

gel. He believes that a season

in the First

Division could

be the spur for

regeneration.

Northampton

face Wasps

today with

Lawrence

Dallaglio’s

team fifth

in the

Premiership

and hell-bent

on finishing in

the top four to

make the

play-offs.

Wasps face

Northampton next Sunday as

well, in the Heineken Cup

semi-final at Coventry City’s

Ricoh Arena, and will be keen

to score some psychological

points today.

Languishing at the bottom of

the table, Northampton are

two points behind 11th-placed

Worcester, who meet London

Irish in Reading this afternoon.

If Worcester win and

Northampton lose, the fate of

the Saints will be sealed and

next season the 2000 European

champions will be travelling to

the likes of Exeter, Plymouth

and Rotherham.

If Northampton are within four

points of Worcester by the end

of today, it will go to the final

weekend of the season in a

fortnight when Saints take on

London Irish at home while

Saracens visit Worcester.

Northampton were close to

being relegated two season

ago and last season looked

doomed until an upsurge of

form.

But hooker Thompson

said: "That just papered over

the cracks. The bottom line is

that we did away with our

academy a few seasons back

and started

signing a number

of so-called,

big-name foreign

stars. In the

Northampton

team who won

the Heineken Cup

many of us were

home-grown.

"As soon as you

sign players who

think they’re

bigger than the

club, you’ve got

problems. We’ve

got players who

were built up to

be much bigger than they ever

were. They never really

bought into the club ethos. If

you don’t do that, then the

club’s got a major headache.

"Players like myself and Ben

Cohen are Northampton lads.

We know what it means to the

town and the fans."

Thompson believes, however,

that relegation could be the

best thing for the club. "There

would have to be a clear-out,"

he said. "Players would have

to go, and coaches, and we’d

have to use our youngsters.

We played quite a few of them

at Leicester and won."