Who was your MoTM as Saints beat Leeds at home?

First up my deep apologies for the delays in writing up the MoTM reports!  I was working on a project in Johannesburg which meant I had very little time for myself over the last few months.  Anyway - the project is now complete and I am on support cover (so far very quiet) so I have the chance to catch up.  These reviews will now be more of a retrospective than normal.  What I will say is at this stage I have no idea who has won over the season.  That will unfold as I progress the catch up.

So to the game - one of many I did not see this season.  I have a real soft spot for Leeds.  It is the largest city in my adopted county, I support the football team (through thick and thin and it is very thin at the moment) and I understand the difficulty of promoting Union in such a working class city where Union is seen as the toffs sport.  Leeds, this season, are under the tutelage of Neil Back.  Neil, a gritty flanker - too small for the modern game, promises to bring a hard nosed edge to Leeds. 

In these early games though Leeds were still finding their feet in the premiership and had no real answer to the pace and power of Saints in the first period and at half time were 24 - 10 down with Saints having secured the bonus point try on 33 minutes.  The second half was somewhat quieter with a final score of 30 - 10.

It was good to see Saints getting the bonus point and I know at this early stage of the season I was starting to believe it was going to be a good one.  The worry was that a really good team would have scored more in the second half!

So, who caught the eye?

Four players stood out this week.  Jon Clarke scored two tries - normally a good way to catch the eye - and received 12% of the votes.  Just ahead with 14.5% of the votes was the young gun that is Courtney Lawes.  This was the season that Courtney went from being a household name in Northampton, to being known by rugby supporters around the world.

In second place was the dynamo of the back row, Roger Wilson, with over 16% of the votes.

The winner, and by some way, was Shane Geraghty with over 27% of the votes.  Shane was at this point full of confidence.  Looking back at the reports he played with verve, pace and no little skill.

So far this campaign Big Jim has utilised 22 different starting players in his line up with 8 players having started every game.

Thanks to the 110 people who voted - it does make my task in compiling these reports easier.

To see the full results and analysis please click through to the following page.

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