SECOND OPINION

26th April 2008   Saints 81 v Launceston 0

The end of an unbeaten season, Flash scores a bucketful of tries and out comes the Moet & Chandon and some humungous pieces of silverware. All good clean fun.

28th April 2007   Saints 27 v LI 22

Saints relegated - and a day many of us shan't forget.

If any of our present squad were not there that day, they need a copy of the video. It will help them understand what Saints is about.

On a sunny afternoon, as Saints moved towards a decent win, the stands grew quieter until you could hear your neighbour getting updates from Saracens' surrender at Worcester. We knew the game was up and relegation was a fact.

At the whistle, silence.

The teams started to troop off, the losers and the officials commiserating with Saints. As always, Bruce clapped the crowd for their support. Maybe he touched a chord.

Whatever, a section of the crowd started clapping back, someone started singing our song and the noise swelled until the whole ground was rocking. Nobody left their places, grown people were singing and crying at the same time, then the team started to walk round the pitch, a bit nervously at first, but gradually walking taller as they became more sure of their welcome.

There is a danger of analysing moments like these too much. I was there, clapping and singing, and I'm still not sure what was going through my mind, let alone anyone else's; mixed emotions certainly, sorrow, some anger, sadness for the team, some of whom we wouldn't see again, defiance, but more than anything, a statement and a challenge to the club and the team, along the lines of

"This is who we are, here we stand and will continue to stand. We are loyal and we are here for you. Now match our support and get the job done".

As Corne Krige said in his book, if he'd played in a western province team which was that bad, he'd have had beer thrown at him, so that level of support came as a shock.

Of course it wasn't all roses from that moment. Let's face it, it was no fluke that Saints were relegated, it was deserved for many reasons and a lot needed to change.

But, having been in the long grass for most of the round, the board finally holed out from a bad place in a deep bunker beside the 18th green when they appointed Jim Mallinder as Director of Rugby and Dorian West as his assistant coach. With minimum fuss and drama they have set about a real cleansing of the stables, root and branch.  The success that has come their way has been no matter of coincidence or luck. Goals have been set, methods and standards have been introduced (and enforced) their work rate has been fierce. Players now know that hard work will be rewarded, that doors are open and that the coaches are in the business of improving and developing them as players. This may seem obvious, but for quite a long time before relegation struck, Saints had not been so (the Academy once restarted being an honourable exception).

We seem to have fallen on our feet, but revisit 28/04/2007 for a moment. It is all very well crying "NEVER AGAIN" when the axe falls, but to back that up and make it real and lasting means a lot of people must make an ongoing commitment to getting things right over a period not of days, weeks or months, but year on year on year. Between the club winning the Heineken Cup and the club being relegated it slipped a long way. You could point to this or that, but in reality, if you improve 10% less each year than your competitors, it doesn't take long before you're not much competition for them any more.  

For the first time in ages, it seems we just need to keep going the way we're pointing.  We can look forward to not just supporting the GB&G, but to enjoy doing it. So welcome to all our new players; know that the shirt is the club's but we are proud of you when you wear it. And to the more critical among us, please try to remember that there really aren't any bad professional rugby players and hardly anyone has a bad day on purpose.

© Northampton Saints RFC. Reproduced by kind permission.

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