I remember the magic of those midweek matches

ROB BAXTER can always be relied on for an honest soundbite and I cheered aloud at the TV last week when he spoke about how excited he and his players were at the forthcoming prospect of some old-fashioned midweek rugby.

- BRENDAN GALLAGHER

His players were achingly fit and gagging for action after over five months out, Chiefs are blessed with a big squad and what a great – and very different – test of a team and club to ‘go again’ in a big competitive game just a few days after their latest game. Bring it on.

Such views are frowned upon a little these days and the RPA rushed out their playing minutes protocol this week but Baxter, cutting edge in many ways, is also a little old school as well. He took part in the last ever midweek ‘friendly’ between Gloucester and Pontypool as a replacement in 1995 although those mighty clashes were the least friendly games imaginable until the combatants compared war wounds in the bar afterwards.

Back then Baxter will have left the family farm in Devon soon after an early lunch to arrive at Kingsholm and after the obligatory post-match beers it will have been the early hours before he got home. Forty winks and it was time to milk the cows.

Regular midweek rugby could be good for your mental health. By Monday morning all the post-match inquests and recriminations from Saturday were over, instead of obsessing and over- analysing what had just happened you were busy planning for a new game and challenge on Tuesday or Wednesday night. And then when the midweek game was over thoughts automatically turned to Saturday.

Physically it also had its plusses. Very few midweek games, if any, for Pontypool would even come close to Ray Prosser’s Monday night fitness sessions that the players were spared by playing in midweek.