By Saint Tim
September 25 2011
Week three finds Saints playing at three o’clock on a Saturday. What on earth is happening? After last week’s loss against a very good Quins side this game saw us pitted against a London Irish team searching for their first win. The squad strengthening we all seemed to be happy with in Week one didn’t seem to fire in round 2 – what would round 3 bring?
Well amongst other things – and I wanted to get this out of the way early – it brought and inconsistent and inept referee. I am not sure he changed the final outcome but he did his best to ruin a match where both teams tried at time to play some rugby only to be bemused at why the whistle went this time when it hadn’t for the same thing just before hand.
Ok so that grumble out of the way the stats below show exactly the problem for Saints on the day. They show that we dominated the set piece, solid on our ball and disrupting frequently on theirs. But for all that we did nothing with what ball we did get. I am not an analyst and I am sure – well I hope – the Saints analysts have worked out why we are not firing. Let us hope it is something small and that we can get it sorted for next week. The forwards certainly have the ability to give the platform – we just need the right structure and plays to be executed.
My final thoughts are that this was a game we should not have been in a position to lose but they say you learn more in adversity than in victory – well I hope the lessons have been learnt.
So where in the stats did we appear to be better than Irish. Well in the following we looked better:
Scrum Success Rate (Irish 63.6%, Saints 100%)
Lineout Success Rate (Irish 81.8%, Saints 92.9%)
Penalties Conceded (Saints 12, Irish 14)
Yellow Cards (Saints 0, Irish 1)
So the set piece was working but not a lot else when you look at those where we were second best.
Turnovers Conceded (Irish 12, Saints 19) – Just not good enough
Passes (Irish 107, Saints 95)
Metres run with the ball (Irish 342, Saints 309)
So a pretty even match in the stats but who were the best performers for Saints – according to the stats?
Callum Clark made the most tackles with 15 but he did miss 2. Noah Cato again made the most distance with ball in hand with 50 metres and Martin Roberts beat the most defenders with 5.
Make of that what you will.
Only two people this week and what a surprise! Alex Waller made his fourth start for the Saints. Alex has won the previous three occasions but this week he was I am afraid second with 12% of the votes. Let’s hope this set back in his performance isn’t the taste of things to come (and in case you are reading this Alex it is a poor attempt at humour)!
The winner this week and by a huge margin was our new scrum half from the valleys. Step forward Martin Roberts who got over 60% of the votes. Martin played his heart out and this is a well deserved win. If there is one little thing I am not sure he is bossing the forwards quite enough yet – although I am prepared to be shot down on this by those who know much better than I do.
Martin is the third winner in three games and it is a first for the half backs. The girls themselves have yet to come to the party this season. I think that sort of sums us up really.
My thank you to the 91 who voted. I really do appreciate it and whilst I know it can be difficult in defeat the players are playing for their livelihoods and I am sure giving it their all. Every time they step on the pitch it could be the last time. Please try and vote.
My thanks again to Claire for the fabulous pictures which we use for the players. Claire cannot make the next couple of games so the pictures will be from the games so far this season.
View a Printer Friendly version of this Story.