Who was your MoTM as Saints swatted the Wasps at the Causeway?

To be honest I didn’t go to the game and I do not subscribe to any pay tv so I haven’t seen anything other than clips from the game.  I do know from talking to people who were there that the game was always on for Saints and it appeared like they didn’t need to play at their best for it to be that way.  The Brian Mujati try was excellent although the pillar defence from Wasps was terrible.

All in all a satisfactory day at the office but not necessarily the best warm up for the games ahead.  Wasps used to be such a difficult team to play and it is not comfortable to see how they find themselves currently.  It is said they have over achieved over many years – well that certainly isn’t the case at the moment.

Well done to those who did travel and made such a noise.

Here is what someone who knows his stuff had to say after the game

What the Stats say

Well with the return of the premiership we have the return of the match stats.  So how did the teams compare?

Where we were better than the Wasps:

Clean breaks - Saints 7, Wasps 3

Rucks Won - Saints 96.23%, Wasps 90.70%

Turnovers Conceded - Saints 8, Wasps 15

Tackling Success Rate - Saints 90.48%, Wasps 86.59%

Probably only the turnovers is a critical stat there as turnover ball is such dangerous ball, so where the Wasps better than Saints:

Runs - Saints 66, Wasps 107

Passes - Saints 78, Wasps 146

To be honest most of the stats are pretty even between the two teams as perhaps one might expect playing away at Wasps.

So who were the individual stand-out performances from the stats?  Top metres run was Vas Artemyev with 108 metres followed by Ben Foden with 45!  Artemyev also made the most clean breaks with three and beat the most defenders with five.  Jon Clarke made the most tackles with 13 not missing a single one he also gave away the most penalties at three.

So, who caught the eye?

My thanks to the 69 people who voted on what was a delayed poll due to that worky stuff.  Claire could not make the game so the pictures today are from the wonderful library we have.

Three people stood out this week.  In third place with 12% was Calum, first name on the team sheet, Clark.  It is often said that Calum is a walking penalty machine but the stats say he did not give away a single one in this game.  Calum has already won once this season and is surely going to be in the mix at the end of the May.

In second place was Courtney Lawes with 15%.  Courtney didn’t have the best of times down under at the world cup.  He was cited for something which is seen almost every week and is usually not mentioned.  He did however not seem to be timing his tackles as we know he can and it all looked a bit clumsy.  Perhaps he does not like standing on his head!  This game marked his return to form for Saints and that is something that most people in England should welcome – not just us Saints supporters.

The winner, his first of the year and the tenth different winner so far was Brian Mujati with 33% of the votes.  In the week before the game someone predicted a big game for Brian and he delivered with a great winning try breaking the line on the 22 and beating all comers to the try line.  Brian is a quiet unassuming guy but he sure is one hell of a rugby player.  How South Africa chose to ignore him for the cup was beyond me.  Well done Brian.

Full Result

Previous Winners

Vote History

Who wins?

Leaderboard

Players Used

I know we banged on about this last year and this being a World Cup year is an odd one but after ten games we have used 34 different starting players and no players have started every game.  There is one player who continues to have had one games rest and his is in many ways the first name on the team sheet!

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