This weekend’s fixtures see a re-run of last week in that the Warriors will take to the park on Friday evening, entertaining Newcastle Falcons at Sixways, some 17 hours before Saints welcome Sale Sharks on to the hallowed turf of FG. Of course, Friday just gone saw Worcester take the spoils over the very team that Saints take on this week. It’s quite simple really, Northampton much match the Warriors efforts and take the points Saturday afternoon. Easy enough for your scribe to write, perhaps more difficult for the team to apply.

So let’s look forward to Satdee…

Sale Sharks have had an injury list which has at least matched that of Saints over recent months. According to the Sharks Official site (which, incidentally, has a nice page on player rehabilitation), players missing are Charlie Hodgson (cruciate), Jason White (same), Lionel Faure (ligament), Mark Taylor (stinger), Nathan Bonner-Evans and Sililo Martens. Then there are the Sharks International representatives; Mark Cueto, Jason Robinson, Magnus Lund and Stuart Turner are all required by England as the national side try to beat Wales by a gersquillion points to win an (if it were to happen) undeserved Six Nations.

On the other hand, Sharks will have Sebastian Chabal back amongst their ranks after he was dropped by the French National side for the Six Nations denouement. France’s loss is Sharks’ gain in my book.

On the Saints side it appears there are no major injury worries apart from those that which we are aware. In the forwards, it will probably be as was for Bath although the fat-boys (and the whole team for that matter!) might try waking up before the 63^rd minute! In the backs, well, what do you want?

Horses for courses for me and I’d like to see Smyler back at 10 for this game with Los out at 13. Given the situation Saints find themselves in, we must put our most creative players out on the park and young Myler deserves another shot at 10. His calmness for one so young with Los, ready to wreak havoc out wide, could be the key to four points on Saturday.

And so…to cliché heaven and the rebel rousing bit of the preview…Just bear with me…

Saints! Wake up and smell the coffee! As Rob Richmond so eloquently said in his match report of the Bath game, “One thing is for sure, we are truly right in the poop. We’ve let the momentum swing Worcester’s way”

I know it’s a big ask and I hear what you say but, it’s not rocket science. A 3-0 win will do guys (like that will happen!). How many wake-up calls does a team need in a season? Myler’s meteoric rise from who(?) to the saviour shouldn’t prevent him being in the XV for Satdee. At this moment in time we need our Saints to deliver, and deliver big time. We need Sharky Robinson to be probing that corridor of uncertainty around the base of the scrum. We need Ben to be waiting by the back stick for the cross field ball. We need the playmakers to be looking outside of the box and to step up to the plate.

We may not be in a good place right now but, to all intents and porpoises, we’ve had enough wake-up calls and it’s time to touch base and deliver.

Absolutely.

End of story.

Sale by three.

Rollocks.

NORTHAMPTON SAINTS:

15 Vaughan Going, 14 BRUCE REIHANA (capt), 13 CARLOS SPENCER, 12 Robbie Kydd, 11 BEN COHEN, 10 Stephen Myler, 9 MARK ROBINSON; 1 TOM SMITH, 2 Dylan Hartley, 3 John Brooks, 4 Damien Browne, 5 Christian Short, 6 PAUL TUPAI, 7 Ben Lewitt, 8 CHRISTIAN LABIT

Replacements: 16 MATIAS CORTESE, 17 SOANE TONGA’UHIA, 18 Matt Lord, 19 Darren Fox, 20 Mark Hopley, 21 Johnny Howard, 22 Seamus Mallon

SALE SHARKS:

15 Julien Laharrague, 14 Chris Mayor, 13 Elvis Seveali’I, 12 Chris Bell, 11 Oriol Ripol, 10 Daniel Larrechea, 9 Ben Foden; 1 Andrew Sheridan, 2 Andy Titterrell, 3 Ben Evans, 4 Chris Jones, 5 Dean Schofield, 6 JM Fernandez Lobbe, 7 Michael Hills, 8 Sebastien Chabal

Replacements: Neil Briggs, Eifion Roberts, Barry Stewart, Sean Cox/David Tait, Lee Thomas, Richard Wigglesworth, Andy Vilk/Steve Hanley

REFEREE: Mr Chris White

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