Match Report

Guinness Premiership Round 8

Gloucester vs Northampton Saints

Kingsholme 28th November  Kick off 4:30pm

By Frank Chambers

Saints frozen out by Gloucester
The Saints were outplayed by Gloucester in freezing conditions at Kingsholm on Saturday evening.  Beaten four tries to one, they were behind for all but ten minutes of the match as their hosts picked up five points and moved to the top of the Guinness Premiership.  Meanwhile Saints slipped one place following Wasps' win at Newcastle the previous evening.

The kick off had been delayed to 4:30pm to accommodate the England-All Blacks game, so having arrived early we decided to go to the "Shogun Bar" under the C&G Stand to watch the carnage.   It was a strange experience, standing with the opposition support and shouting for the same team.  Although shouting at the same team might be more accurate.  By the time Flood got a yellow card for trying to decapitate the New Zealand scrum half, it was clear we were only staying in the bar because it was warmer than outside.

Two big questions needed to be answered this evening:  would Saints wear their "losing" white strip?  And would there be post-score music for the Glaws supporters to boo?   The answer to both questions was no.

On the subject of the strip, last week when Saints entertained the Bath Giants, I postulated a theory (first formed at a Cobblers versus Bolton game in the early 60s) that teams wearing white looked bigger than teams wearing dark colours.   The Bath boys certainly looked big, especially two of their back three, Bananaman and Custard.  Both teams wore darkish colours today, but the Saints still looked a lot smaller than the Glaws lads.   Theory disproved.

The Saints fielded a team close to the one that drew with Bath (or was robbed, etc.): there were just three changes and all in the forwards.  Juandre Kruger was absent with an injured ankle and he was replaced by Christian Day; and Euan Murray and Scott Gray rejoined the starting lineup at the expense of Mark Hopley and Barry Stewart.    The plan to keep Foden, Myler and Bruce on the field together continued, with Bruce playing No 13 again.

From the kick off, Saints chased well and Gloucester cleared the ball from the ruck by kicking it straight out.  As the bodies moved away, it was clear that Anthony Allen had received a knock.  A couple of minutes later he was replaced by Ollie Barkley, who, I was informed by my neighbour, "Wasn't much good, he's supposed to be a decent kicker but we've never seen it!".  

A lot of aerial ping pong followed, accompanied by random screams of indignation from the Shed for real or imagined Saintly misdemeanours.   Carlos tried to get things moving with some huge passes to both wings, but the first score came following a Tindall break.   "Zara's love interest" was eventually brought down, there was a Saints hand in the ruck and Ryan Lamb kicked a simple penalty.  10 minutes, 3-0.

Carlos tried one of his clever kickoffs at the restart, the ball swerving to the left.  Digger appeared to head it out of play and into the Shed (many donkey noises ensuing).  From the throw in, Gloucester moved the ball quickly down the right wing, then VERY quickly across field where Vainikolo occupied several Saints defenders before passing to Balshaw who scored in the left hand corner.   Ryan Lamb missed a touchline conversion. 11 minutes, 8-0.

At the 15 minute mark it was clear that Gloucester were up for this game, and they were threatening to trample the opposition.  Another Vainikolo stampede was stopped by a Chris Ashton hands-free tackle, but it seemed only a matter of time before the next Gloucester score.   And so it came after 20 minutes, with Vainikolo again heavily involved and invoking a some headless chicken-ness in the Saint's defence.  The ball went to Narraway who ignored a couple of flappy tackles and strolled over near the left hand corner.   Ryan Lamb converted.   20 minutes, 15-0.

At this point the Saints started to pull themselves together, or maybe Gloucester started to relax a little...  in any case the visitors got into the game at last.   A Gloucester player off his feet in a ruck earned a penalty just outside the 22 which Stephen Myler converted.  24 minutes,  15-3.

One satisfying aspect of the Saints play after the first quarter (and for the rest of the match!) was their ability to steal Gloucester's lineout.  Nacho Lobbe was responsible for an awful lot of disruption in this area.  Unfortunately Saints' poor handling (or more accurately, catching) wasted a lot of this possession.

The scrum situation was less clear with frequent collapses and Referee Debney usually penalising the Saints for them.  It did seem that our forwards were getting under the skin of the opposition, and from not until the end of the game the Gloucester did not often get clean ball.  Their scrum half was not having a good time...

Saints had the upper hand in the second quarter, but unfortunately failed to turn possession into points.  Gloucester's defence was not really threatened, they just defended patiently and waited for the knock on.   Ben Foden performed a trademark break down the left and up to the 22 line, but this ended in a knock on and Gloucester cleared with a huge kick from Balshaw to touch 15m from the Saints line.

The other highlight of the Saints' half was a great Carlos-style break by Carlos Spencer who got to 5 metres of the Gloucester line before running out of steam and being shepherded into touch.  This was probably the only point in the half where Saint's looked like getting over the whitewash.

As half time approached, the Saints supporters would have been forgiven for feeling a little optimistic, given the battering they were starting to give the Cherry boys.  However the sucker punch arrived a minute or so before half time when Narraway attacked, passed to Vainikolo on the left who attracted his usual three defenders and then flipped the ball to Barkley who stretched over the line.  Lamb missed the conversion, it was 20-3 at half time and the bloke next to me actually smiled.

The second half opened with a Saints attack down the left by Bruce Reihana's kick ahead and Digger bundling Ryan Lamb into touch.   So far so good, we thought, let's have more of the same.  We can get back into this!   It looked even more promising because Saints were stealing virtually every Gloucester lineout and creating scrappy ball all round.  Then after 50 minutes the Saints supporters had even more to smile about.  A determined attack down the left started with Digger trying to reach the corner, then Bruce had a go and tried to muscle over.  Finally Scott Gray found a rare chink in the Gloucester defence and pushed over in the corner.  Stephen Myler kicked an excellent touchline conversion.   51 minutes, 20-10.

Around this time there were substitutions in both packs with pantomime villain Azam being substituted, along with Tom Smith and Joe Gray.  From this point there were just two cleanly-won Gloucester scrums.

Saints continued to have the upper hand until the end of the third quarter when Gloucester scored a fabulous try.   An attack on the left saw the ball go to Vainikolo who kicked ahead a little hard and raced on before performed a flying goalkeeper save and touching down in the left hand corner.  This was the bonus point try, converted by Lamb from the touchline (anything you can do, Mr Myler), and it was 27-10 on 60 minutes.

Reading my notes for the rest of the game, a lot of lines look like:  "promising attack by Saints, knock on", so I won't bore you with most of the details.  Chris Ashton claimed a try when Tindall took the ball over the line and touched down, but Saints knocked on after the resulting 5-metre scrum and the line was cleared.   Gloucester got a couple more kickable penalties for Saints offside, and duly kicked them to make the final score 33-10.  Contrary to expectations, it was Gloucester who were battering the Saints line for the last five minutes, and the Saints who held out with some desperate defending.   

It seems that the Saints are vulnerable, especially on their right, to big fast wingers (all the Gloucester tries were scored on their left, just like Bath's and Scarlets').   I don't like to criticise players, but at times Chris Ashton had that rabbit in the headlights look on his face and he clearly didn't know what to do about Vainikolo.   Bruce was playing 13, a position that needs absolute concentration, and that's difficult when you are the skipper.  He is a full back and apart from the place kicking, I still think he is a better choice for 15 than Stephen Myler.

The Saints forwards would be forgiven for feeling a bit aggrieved after this game.  They pinched the majority of the Gloucester lineouts and more often than not were superior in the scrum.  They provided plenty of possession.  The backs, however, had no answer to Gloucester, whether attacking or defending. Only Carlos (who never stopped trying) and Digger (ditto) stood out. This was a disappointing (but fairly predictable) evening.

On the Gloucester side, apart from Vainikolo who was hugely influential, Tindall and Narraway had stormers, Ryan Lam kicked intelligently and Ollie Barkley didn't cock anything up.  We have to face it, the Cherry and Whites were simply better than the Saints.

Match Fact: Iain Balshaw did not drop a single high ball.

Silliest moment:  Alex Rae hurling the ball at 90mph from the top of the lineout through Lee Dickson's hands.

Shop Fact:  "Simply World Class" mugs are on sale in the Gloucester shop.  Now where have we heard that before?

Attendance:  13,495 very cold people.

Teams:

Northampton

15 Stephen Myler

14 Chris Ashton

13 Bruce Reihana (capt)

12 James Downey

11 Paul Diggin

10 Carlos Spencer

9 Ben Foden

1 Tom Smith

2 Joe Gray

3 Euan Murray

4 Ignacio Fernandez Lobbe

5 Christian Day

6 Mark Easter

7 Scott Gray

8 Roger Wilson

Replacements

16 Paul Shields

17 Barry Stewart

18 Soane Tonga'uiha

19 Alex Rae

20 Mark Hopley

21 Lee Dickson

22 Nils Mordt

Gloucester

15 Iain Balshaw

14 Matthew Watkins

13 Mike Tindall (capt)

12 Anthony Allen

11 Lesley Vainikolo

10 Ryan Lamb

9 Dave Lewis

1 Nick Wood

2 Olivier Azam

3 Carlos Nieto

4 Will James

5 Marco Bortolami

6 Peter Buxton

7 Alasdair Strokosch

8 Luke Narraway.

Replacements

Scott Lawson

Alasdair Dickinson

Adam Eustace

Apo Satala

Rory Lawson

Olly Barkley

Willie Walker.

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