Brian Ashton got down to work this week with a Boxing Day visit to Adams Park to see us (Wasps) play Gloucester. What he learned we'll discover soon, when he announces his first elite squad, but it must have been nice for a rugby man to put politics on the back burner.
However, while he was being selected as England's head coach at Twickenham, something significant was also happening 120 miles down the M4. As the RFU was deciding who should lead England, Bristol were making sure it would not be their man, Richard Hill. The wise West Country committee men nipped any talk in the bud by extending his contract.
It's easy to see why they want him to stay around. On Wednesday, three seasons after Bristol last beat Bath at Ashton Gate - only to be relegated - they returned to the soccer stadium for another victory over their neighbours - making it the treble this season. More importantly, it took Bristol into 2007 as leaders of the Guinness Premiership. Favourites to be relegated when the season started, Bristol are two points clear of the pack and have been at or near the top long enough to show it's no fluke and that Hill is proving a talented man.
Just compare the squad full of internationals that were relegated in 2003 with the players that have replaced them. The lone England international is Shaun Perry who, until Hill spotted him, played for Coventry on Saturdays while steel-bashing for the rest of the week. Dan Ward-Smith should soon join him. The 28-year-old No8 from Plymouth had been a Hill target long before he joined Bristol and is my tip to be England's bolter at next year's World Cup.
Gareth Llewellyn is typical of other Hill signings. The oldest man in the Premiership, at 37, must have been contemplating pipe and slippers before Hill called, suggesting he play alongside Roy Winters, another 30-something, who must have impressed Hill if few others during their time together at Harlequins. But that's the thing about Hill. He's pulled together players from his past and added unconsidered talents from National League One, melding them into a winning side that plays until it drops, never giving up, snatching unlikely victories.
Up front and egged on by Mark Regan - typical of the man that he has told Ashton he's prepared to come out of Test retirement if England calls - they know everything about the darker arts. Out wide they have David Lemi, leading try-scorer in the Premiership, and Lee Robinson, who looks and runs as though he should be ex-SAS. Statistically, until Hill fielded a second XV that leaked six tries against Leicester on Boxing Day, they also had the best rush defence in the league. But again that decision to rest his better players is typical of Hill.
Last season, when survival was all, he gave up on Europe and the Anglo-Welsh Cup and avoided the drop. This time Europe is part of his thinking - and he's top of his Challenge Cup pool - but he's targeting the Premiership strategically. The season is blocked off with points targets for each segment. He didn't think his squad could win three on the trot over Christmas, so Leicester was surrendered while he aimed at Bath (home) and Sale (away on Monday).
Equally important, he's been really smart off the field. Bristol were fallen giants, with a habit of squandering talent - Wasps have benefited more than most from their inability to keep players - and had lost their ground and much of their support.
From the moment Hill arrived he started making the club part of the community. Players were told to spend time talking, post-match, to the fans in the bars, making them feel part of the club. Schools were visited. As a consequence more than 21,000 - a record for a Premiership game played away from Twickenham - were at Ashton Gate on Wednesday when Hill sealed my gong for coach of the year.
The runners-up were the Argentina head coach, Marcelo Loffreda, who masterminded the defeat of England after just two training sessions, and Clive Griffiths, who has done wonders at Doncaster in National League One.
