Saints upset again

Don’t let the ball bounce!!

They forgot some other things that they learned at school also, but more of that later.

The writers day started with a 5:30 am kick off of the mighty Azzuri vs.some blokes in black.  Not the best of starts, but Mamma would never forgive me if I missed it, so Hey ho, put it down to being born in the wrong country.  Followed this up at 8:00 and watched fascinated, as “The Oak Trees” of Romania performed Heroically in their

Loss to “Gods own”.  Who on Earth is that little chubby bloke with a bald head that spends a lot of time in the scrums but hits the gain line like a centre??

Then the first bit of France against Fiji.  (A clash of temperaments if ever I saw one) before jumping in the car and speeding off to Northampton.  65 miles,  one hour and twenty minutes later safely parked in the road that leads out of that awful Saints car park, and with the car facing out, I should have a fighting chance of getting out of Northampton by midnight  (If I leave before the end of the game). That is my one and only swipe at Saints.  Honest.

So plenty of time to have a wander about and see what’s going on.  Now Rugby is big in Northampton, but it is not a “one horse town”, and there is some soccer game on telly later, so there are many more England football shirts in evidence than either Saints or LI shirts.  Big points scored for Rugby though, with signs outside every pub and club saying “Saints and all Rugby supporters welcome”  contrasted by the big bloke outside each one stopping the blokes with earrings and white shirts from going in.  Also I have to say that it is great to see so many Irish shirts around town, many worn by usual suspects, but also many people I have never met before.  The Irish away support is growing, and I reckon that for this game, upwards of 300 showed up.

Off to the ground for about 13:30, catch up with the suspects, watch the presentation of loads of certificates and medals to local Minis, then a quick rendition of a few Queen songs led by Joe (FreddyM) V. and into the ground to settle into the …erm….”snug” seats, and ready for kick off.  Just time for the announcer to confuse everyone, with a big long list of changes to the program which amounted to Pierre replacing Matt Cannon on the bench for LI, and Renaud Pilard replacing Brett Sturges at Loosehead for Saints..

The first significant event of the game was in the first minute.  Irish awarded a lineout on their own 10M line, and lose it. Saints set up a good attack with Backs and forwards which ends in a Knock on about 15 metres from the Irish line. Irish win the scrum and Horak clears but only to midway between 22 and 10 lines.  Saints win their own lineout, and set up a rolling maul.  Irish hold it well, (a sign of things to come), but Saints set up a couple of rucks and end up coming down the short side two on two. Drahm sells Appleford the dummy and scoots the 12 or so metres to the line.  Whats this?? The 2^nd meanest defence in the ZP giving up a very soft try in the 3^rd Minute???  Quelle Horreure!!!

Drahm converted his own try, and it is 4 minutes.. Saints 7 Irish 0.

From the restart, Shane Drahm cleared to touch, Irish win Lineout and set up two or three phases.  Blowers is offside on each phase but finally gets pinged on the third, in front of the posts, Tofty kicks it.  5 Minutes.. Saints 7 Irish 3

Irish field the restart and kick a bit aimlessly, Saints run the ball back through their backs, but Irish give a glimpse of things to come, with a massive double tackle in midfield which forces Reihana to cough up the ball.

Irish scrum on the Irish 10 Metre line, Irish win it and go left.  Set up the 2^nd phase quick ball, left from Darren to Awesome, sidestep, hand off and makes 20 metres.  Good continuity from the forwards, 3 drives and rucks, with quick recycling.  Fourth or fifth phase.   Irish Pack pile in and get quick ball.  Darren to Tofty, going right.  Miss pass to Sacks, about 35 yards out.  Paul hands off John Clarke, and is one on one with Nick Beale.  Chips him and wins the race to touch down.  A genuine 60 metre “ girls and fat blokes” combination try, scored by the team that don’t know how to do it.

Tofty converts.  9 minutes.. Saints 7 Irish 10.

The next 4 minutes play, are very reminiscent of the PG Cup final.  And Irish now play their very best Rugby.  Fierce tackling, forcing turnovers, then good recycling and straight running from the forwards, as well as “keep em honest” kicks from Tofty.  To be honest, at this stage, Tofty looks like the best fly half in the country,  Absolutely on fire.

The  2^nd Irish Try comes from a Saints lineout take.  Irish pressure forces a turnover at the ruck.  Tofty looks up and sees the overlap and spins the ball through Nils, to Geoff.  Geoff has a one on one with Reihana, with Horak and Bish outside.  He should really have taken it himself, but gave the miss pass to Bish.  The green Masses all breathe in as the ball whizzes towards Bish’s knee, but he gets his hands down, Somehow it sticks, and he just has to stroll over the line.

13 Minutes.. Saints 7 Irish 17.

Northampton Saints are no mugs, and nobodies’ easy game.  They regroup strongly now and set up a string of attacks going right through the girls, and get an overlap, with Bruce Reihana going for the line.  Geoff Appleford appears from nowhere and tackles him into touch 5M short.  In fact Mr Pearson had blown for a forward pass, but Geoffrey.  Stand up.  That is London Irish Defence..

Declan comes on for Murph, who goes to the blood bin.  Irish win the scrum in their own 22, and set up several Phases of possession finally there is a ruck just inside the Irish 10M line. Darren sends the ball left to Nils who beats his man and makes 30 metres.  Ryan  is on his shoulder takes the pop pass and heads down the field like a rampaging Wildebeast. Only one defender between him and the line, but this time he will not pass it even if he gets a telegram signed by the entire management team.  He tries the Maori (Murphy) sidestep but gets caught.  First man there is (As always) Awesome Dawson.  He sets up the ruck.  Surprise, surprise, Andrew Blowers kills the ball  (Which by now, has become quite a habit) and gets pinged.

I was talking earlier about things you learn in the under 11’s.  Well what happens next is definitely one of them.  There are a couple of injuries to be dealt with, so Tofty (clever little blighter) makes the best of the confusion.  He stands on the Penalty mark with the ball and waits.  The Saints team (Amazingly every single one of them) lines up at the goal line expecting him to take the kick, and planning their next attack.  The injuries are cleared and Mr. Pearson tell Tofty to play.  He taps the ball to himself and scampers the thirty metres to the line while all the Saints players look at each other, and say “not me Guv”.  Howls from the crowd, Oh the injustice!!!  But this writer sees this as poetic justice, because surely, had Mr. Blowers not killed the ball Irish would have scored from the attack, and surely, a player infringing in the same way so often should be taught the error of his ways.  If the referee will not do it then scores on the board is the next best thing.

Just to rub it in the pocket size No. 10  has the audacity to add the two points from close to his LH touchline.  23 Mins.. Saints 7 Irish 24.

So… We have a rout on our hands.  The Saints have stopped marching in, and the Fields of Athenry, are belting out, but anyone who thinks a proud team like Saints, with the likes of Beal. Reihana, Drahm, Blowers, Robinson, and Robbie Morris in it, is just going to roll over, is badly mistaken.  Within 2 minute Saints get a try back.  Probably the best individual try of the match.  Directly from a scrum on Halfway.  Blowers picks up and feeds Robinson, who hands off Dawson, and beats Darren for speed, he runs straight, and finds himself one on one with Horak. He fakes to go right then left, puts Mike of balance, and skins him going right, then cuts back to the line.  A really fine individual try, by the guy who looks like probably the best buy of the summer from the SH. Perhaps he will be available soon, as surely he will have to make way when Matt Dawson returns and the ZP reverts to the “One foreign player” rule.

Anyway.  Easy kick for Drahm, but he shanks it like a bad golf shot, the bad contact could be heard at the other end of the ground.  Missed conversion. 26 Minutes.. Saints 12 Irish 24.. And five tries scored in the first 25 breathless minutes.

Irish field the Kick and O’sheas makes his first big charge, he is dragged down, and the ball spills forward.  (Amazingly Irish’s first error of the whole game, but sadly the first of many more).  This lets Saints attack to the left, 2 or 3 phases, then Kieran Dawson goes offside (Must have been watching AB).  Drahm hits the penalty from the 10 Metre line .  27 Mins.. Saints 15 Irish 24.

For the rest of the half it is Saints on the attack, and fantastic Stoical Irish defence,  Seemingly now, Irish are into their careless mode, and every Irish attack ends in a turnover, or an error of some sort.  Saints finish the half looking by far the most dangerous.  The only incident of note before the ref blows for half time is a bit of aggressive rucking from Robbie Morris on Beefy, which earns him a yellow card after 37 minutes and raises the temperature in the front row exchanges.

Mr. Pearson ends the half after 40 mins and 48 seconds with thee core at Saints 15 Irish 24.  but there is a bit of  handbags between Beefy and Chris Budgen.  For the only time in the game, the touch judge decides to offer advice, and the result is a penalty against Beefy for retaliating to a punch.  The result is that the players have to return to the field for a Saints Penalty.  Shane Drahm obliges from about 46 Metres and the “amended”Half time score is Saints 18 Irish 24.

All of my notes from the 2^nd half look the same.  Saints attack.  Fantastic Irish defence in Midfield, fierce rucking from Irish, Turnover, Irish ball. Irish go through a couple of Phases, turnover, Saints attack for a long period but get no where against Irish defence, Turnover.  To be fair Saints had the lions share of possession and territory, but there were two key limitations to their game.

1^st, they were unable to win any lineout ball further back than 2.  This meant that they had to drive nearly all their lineout ball.  This is meat and drink to the Irish pack this season, with so much more bulk than last year, and they easily repulsed all the driving mauls from the lighter Saints pack.  Great credit here to Murph, Strudders and Big Bob.  The 2^nd weakness was in the centres, where Tucker and Hyndman were pretty much powered out of the game by Nils and Geoff.  This meant that aside from either individual brilliance (a la Robinson try) or Irish defensive mistakes (a la Drahm try, they never really looked like scoring tries.  It is amazing then that they kept running the ball up the blind alleys created by the Irish Rush up defence.  The net result of all the Saints huffing and puffing, and the Irish pressure defence was two penalties a piece.  However the  build up to the first Irish penalty made my heart sing.

From one of the countless Saints turnovers, Murph picked up the ball on the LH side about 30 metres from his own line, and rumbled up the left, broke a tackle and looked outside, where he saw the old Wildebeast himself, Strudders Galloping up the wing to take the pass He made about 10 metres, and passed inside to the Pounding…. Er…. Big Bob, who passed the ball out of contact to Murph , who was still rumbling.  The fatblokes had made 35 yards and turned defence into attack.  Blowers was the first Saints player  to the breakdown, and, because he only knows one way, he went offside.  Penalty to Irish.  Tofty Kicked it, even though he had just got up from a heavy knock and was soon to leave the field to be replaced by Barry.  51 minutes Saints 18 Irish 27.

Saints then went completely to pieces.  Playing catch up rugby with half an hour to go.  Both teams rang the changes, the only Irish sub not used was Kevin Barrett.

For Irish, the most notable  impacts made by subs were Pierre Durant who really made a difference to the Scrums, and Dec, who is now becoming a great impact player with his defence, and speed to the breakdown.

Kieran Dawson was binned in overtime for killing a ruck about 15 metres from the Irish posts, but Saints needed a try, so did not take the kick, and honestly, even with 14 Exiles on the field, it never looked like Saints would cross the line.

So the 2^nd half ended 6 – 6 and Irish ran out 30 – 24 winners to go 4^th in the ZP table..

I think we saw the best, and worst of both teams.  First the thrilling, error free 25 minutes, which put 5 try’s on the board, then the error strewn remainder of the game.

Saints.  Shane Drahm, was named MOTM, and he had a fine game.  But for me Nick Beal was by far their best player, followed by Drahm. Reihana and Robinson.  Blower for me had a much poorer game than I would have expected, but is clearly the leader on the pitch.  I think they were poor in the lines out, and continually tried to attack Irish’s defensive strengths.  I think if I was them, I might put this loss down to the coach.

Irish.  As I said, showed the best and the worst.  The pack again, were outstanding as a unit.  We destroyed them in the lineouts, and put on enough pressure to force the repeated turnovers.  Darren had another good game and has really improved his form now.

With Tofty in his current form, I think we have the best No.10 in the ZP at the moment, he is not just quick and skilful, he is also very clever. The two wingers got tries on the board, and did all their usual defensive work, coming off their man, and snuffing out overlaps.  Mike Horak made more errors in this game than I have seen from him for some time.

But I have to give the stand out performances to the centres.  Geoff tackled his heart out, and was involved in both of the wingers tries,  but my MOTM goes to Nils Mordt.  A great game in attack and defence.  I think that this performance will make it very hard to pick Hoads in front of him.

 So Paul Hull has worked the magical feat, of turning our weakness (the 9,10,12 axis, into our strength). As Gary Gold said yesterday, what we now need is consistency. 

Form was turned on it’s head today, not even the most ardent Irish supporter thought that we would get more than a BP from this game.  But we all forgot what can happen if you let a rugby ball bounce.

 

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