J: I understand Steve So’oialo picked up an injury playing against Northampton Saints, can you shed any light on that?

DR: He hurt his shoulder, he has had a scan on his shoulder which has revealed very little damage at all, he’s starting to recover pretty quickly and we’re hopeful that he will be available for the world cup and the likelihood is that he will be, if it does continue to cause problems we’ve got people on stand-by to have a look at it should they be required

J: Are you concerned about the amount of injuries?

DR: Within Harlequins or within….

J: Within Harlequins.

DR: We’ve got a few, some of which are going to last a little bit longer than we would probably want, at the same time a lot of the injuries should clear up in the next two weeks. Going into the season, we are probably going to have only 2 or 3 guys that are not going to be available in that first week, assuming that we don’t pick anything up in the mean time. Then you have to take into account the guys who were away with the world cup or were injured with the world cup squads, which we wouldn’t have seen anyway.

J: Are you looking to link up with some other local clubs with regards to loaning out players for extra experience, such as London Welsh or Esher?

DR: Yeah very much so, one of the reasons we did it last year and one of the reasons we’ll do it this year, is for the development of the players, and sometimes it’s just a case of getting game time for the players because throughout the season you can’t service every player in terms of game time, so it’s important that we give them the best opportunity to play at the highest level and sometimes that highest level for us is playing in the first division. Thankfully we have the likes of London Welsh, the likes of Esher, Newbury, all these sides within a short distance of ourselves. I think it would be fair to say that we have a bit of a tie in with Esher, I know Mike Schmid very well, Colin Osbourne who works at our place is helping out down there and I have confidence in the coaching down there. There is a little bit of a tie in there, with Esher. And most probably throughout the year some of our boys will be playing with Esher throughout the season.

J: Can’t quite hear the question, something about how important is it too make a good start, like Bristol last season?

DR: Whenever you get to the world cup year, for a start, it is a very difficult period for people to judge form, because you can be missing the key personnel, the people that make the side tick. I always believe that at this stage, when you are coming in to a world cup year, there is always a chance for an upset, or hopefully sides that didn’t perform the previous year to perform better. I think for us, we finished seventh, we’ve trained extremely well this year, I think we have a better squad than we did last year, and I’d like to think that are start will be better than last year

ME: Yeah!

DR: Well I hope so, what was it six out of six

ME: Hmmmm (holds up 7 fingers)

DR: Seven out of seven

J:There are a lot of teams saying the same thing at the start of the season

DR: Yeah, you look at Leeds Carnegie, who have come up, the start is important to them, they, perhaps haven’t got the strongest side, but they have got a great coach in Stuart Lancaster, I’ve got a lot of time for Stuart Lancaster, he will be a very, very good coach for the future, but they haven’t got as many people missing as the likes of us, Leicester, Wasps, and these boys and I think that there opportunity will be during this world cup period and that will be where they are targeting

ME: I think you can overstate it as well though. Let’s not forget, that there are no autumn internationals this year, last season we played the Guinness premiership with four autumn internationals, because of that New Zealand game, Andy Robinson’s favourite game, got put in. Not at his behest, as we all know, but that meant that the sides and the other home nations play four international over the autumn. We have the six nations as normal, so if you strip away a lot of the emotion about it, and Dean’s point is that that it is at the start and I accept that it changes the dynamic and maybe the psychology of it all, but in terms of how many games are those guys going to miss its not actually, unless you think they are going to go to the final, then, its not that different to a normal year for most clubs. But some people are talking it up like nobody’s business; it doesn’t actually stand up to too close an examination.

J: Over the whole 22…..

ME: Over the 22 games

DR: There is very little over the 22 games the difference is…

ME: they come back tired.

DR: It’s a start and if you can get off to a good start, as Bristol did last year it can set you up for the season. And that is the only difference.

J:How much satisfaction did you take, from the fact that you did not have any current internationals in the national side at the start of the season, to at the end of the season you had a whole raft of players being selected.

DR: I think that the players set there own standards, if they are doing extras outside, then on occasions it really shows, Gommers spends a lot of time outside practising his passing skills, people like Stretts just have natural ability, is he at the back, or is he out playing with the kids…..

ME: Play to your strengths!

DR: I think the players set their own standards and they are only assisted by the coaches, we take a lot of satisfaction out of the players playing at the highest level

J: Stuart you had a very up and down season last year, how are you feeling at the moment?

SA – I’ve felt better to be honest, I had a shoulder op a couple of months ago, I’m just trying to get back on the field as quick as possible. Last year was a bit up and down with the fact that I had a knee injury, As Dean said, that is probably one of the reasons Dean has recruited De Wet Barry,  in the centre position you tend to take a couple more knocks and if you look at the squad last year, JTH did his shoulder last year and Hal had a few injuries. For me it’s about getting on the field and staying fit and putting in some good performances

J: Is there an estimation as to the time you will be back to full fitness?

SA – Not as this stage, hopefully about another month or so.

J - How much extra revenue is the new stand going to bring in?

ME: That? (points to South Stand)

J: Yes

ME: Which one, the one I’m putting in for next season? None.

J: There isn’t going to be any increase?

ME:Maybe a slight loss

J - Right

ME - We might lose a bit of money on it

J: So there isn’t going to be an increase in ticket prices then?

ME: Very small, yeah, I think it was £15 there last year, it’s been put up to £17 with a roof on the edge, £20 in the middle. It’s behind the posts, it won’t sell out, even I don’t think it will sell out every game, and I’m fairly bullish, no I think we might just, just get our money back, but if it falls any side it will fall the wrong side. But you are improving the experience, you are making it all seater, you are making it all covered, you are making a statement to the fans that you looking to making an investment year on year. And I think that is worth a small deterioration.

It’s not like this (indicates the Lexus stand) where the model of this is you were replacing 600 seats with 4000. It’s a completely different model, there you are not getting a single extra seat, we have the same number of seats as we had before, they are better quality. But it is the last stand in the stadium to get sold, the Lexus and the Etihad get sold first, then the North, then the South. We won’t fill it, it will help drive attendances a little bit.

I got the feeling last year, if anyone was here for the Bath game, I felt a bit bad, to be honest, I did. It sounds a bit romantic now, but one of the reasons we did it and I pushed the button on it and I did um and ah about it, I’ll be honest, I thought back to a game in January I think it was Bath, we absolutely whacked them  9 – 3, they were lucky to get three frankly.

DR: we were luck to get nine

ME: It was perishing cold, poured all game, and I remember walking from what was the East over here, to the nice warm Legends lounge, thinking I’ll have a beer on the way, and I saw this guy with a little lad, he was only about 7 , and he didn’t have a coat on, he had a big jumper on and they were sitting there on the fifth row back, watching the game, and I thought how likely is it that, that kid will want to come back to watch again.  They clearly weren’t very high income earners, they didn’t have an awful lot, they were in the cheapest seats in the ground. We have got to be able to do better then that.

DR: So you gave them your coat

ME: I gave them my coat clearly, and a complimentary umbrella from merchandise.
Nah! (chuckle) it’s just, we’ve moved, particular in London, the days where you are going to get people sitting or standing in the open air or in rain….We’re not from a rugby watching heartland, I think we are in a rugby heartland in terms of playing, but there is no tradition, going back the last ten years of people going to watch club rugby, it’s not like where I’m from, or where Dean is from, you stood there for years and years and it didn’t matter. We’ve got to do a bit better than that otherwise we are not going to keep our growth growing. So, I know it sounds a little Pollyanna-ish but that is almost what tipped it.

J: So what you are saying is you are prepared to take a bit of a loss.

ME: Yeah, it’s not going to be there forever, we want to put a really ambitious project there, but we can’t just let, what was a pretty ropey facility, just sit there year after year after year and do nothing about it. I mean who do you think we are? Bath!

J: Is it going to be similar to that? (indicates north stand)

ME - It won’t be quite as good as that, to be honest, but it will be a lot better than what was there.

Press conference ends!

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