Two former Premiership room-mates who have sought refuge in the First Division meet today at Craven Cottage.
The reason Ryan has been doing his thing in a chilly tactics truck for the last few years rather than a deep heat-infused Premiership changing room is because the former Wasps and Newcastle enforcer had something of an epiphany.
The Premiership makes room for international football over the next week and Archibald felt it would have been better to have taken the time out with a win from the trip to Pittodrie, but acknowledged that Aberdeen had outperformed his players on the day.
My neutral mole, who has been canvassing the Premiership dressing-room mood, is particularly unconvinced by the argument that activating the exceptional-circumstances clause in this instance would seriously undermine the domestic league and lead to a mass exodus of English talent to France.
But the past decade has witnessed the rise of the "gentleman's club", frequented by City bankers and Premiership footballers, their "VIP rooms" replete with expensive champagne.
Under the current agreement between the Rugby Football Union and the Premiership clubs, the coach's room for manoeuvre is strictly limited.
Using a football metaphor, Anthony Quinn, academician and film critic of The Independent, said that if the Booker was seen as the FA Cup "why isn't there room for The Premiership?" Each year, academicians will nominate up to three books each, and they will be judged by five judges selected from their number by lots.
Models rarely give interviews, and if they do they're as studiedly anodyne and vague as Premiership footballers quizzed outside the changing room after a match.
Dundee United manager Jackie McNamara is delighted to be at the top of the Premiership and reckons there is still room for improvement.
Quality all the way down the Premiership?
There just isn't enough room at the bottom of the Zurich Premiership at the moment, so somebody's going to have to go down.
