Question: Pick your MoTM as Saints were pipped by Irish away.

So it was a case of sitting on the Captain's sofa and watching via the best that Murdoch (standard) vision had to offer.  Irish were flying in the League although there were a few missing faces due to International call ups - so was this Saints opportunity?  At the outset it looked like it could be as Saints attached from deep at every opportunity, moving the ball about and making great progress.  Bruce scored in the corner and all was looking good.  We certainly seemed to have them rattled until Courtney saw Yellow and in the period Saints were down to 14 men Irish scored.  Unfortunately one of the young lads called up into the Irish first team seemed to have guided kicks as Tom Homer converted this and then kicked 6 penalties to 5 in response from the Saints.  In between Roger Wilson had crashed over but unfortunately there were no extra points here.  

So it was coming into the final ten minutes Saints were one point behind and looking for opportunities to take the game to Irish.  Unfortunately however the man in the middle then got involved with one of those decisions which is hotly disputed.  Irish had a scrum on the Saints 5m line and for once got ascendency in the scrum pushing Saints back and in the action that followed the referee decided Saints had infringed and gave a penalty try.  Even Master barnes was not totally certain what it was for.

This was heartbreak for Saints - away at one of the leaders - and a losing bonus point and the opportunity for more seemed to have been snatched from them.  All credit to the team, however, as they did not fold or open up as so often earlier in the season!  Instead they drove up field and when Richards was penalised for pulling back a man without the ball - Captain Bruce Bruce Reihana calmly stepped up and slotted over the penalty to give Saints a losing bonus point.  It was better than nothing but it could have been so much more and it is a measure of the road we have travelled this season that we got something.

So who caught the eye?

Once again Roger Wilson was high on people list from the game but he could not increase his tally of wins for the season coming in third with over 11% of the votes.

In second place was Lee Dickson with 10% of the votes.  Lee has yet to register a win in this his first season with the Saints.  That however does not mean he has not brought a lot to the team and seems to have made the number 9 shirt his own.

The stand out man this match for you was Captain Bruce Bruce Reihana with over 29% of the 89 votes cast.  Amazingly this is Bruce's first win of the season.  This is s surprise as Bruce has definitely returned to top form during the season - it is just that there are now so many good performances in the team.  Well done Captain!

An increasingly rare win for the backs narrows the gap a little in the divisional stakes with 10.5 wins (13 if you include the half backs) to the forwards 15 wins.

Full Result

Previous Winners

Vote History

Who wins?

Winners 

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