By Serious_Saint
September 19 2014
After last weekend's reverse against Wasps, Northampton Saints are on the road again this time out as they travel north to take on Newcastle Falcons on Sunday. Regular COYSDC contributor, Serious_Saint, looks ahead to the game...
NEWCASTLE FALCONS vs NORTHAMPTON SAINTS
AP: Sunday, 21st September 2014 - 2pm (BT)
KINGSTON PARK, NEWCASTLE
MATCH PREVIEW
So for the second Sunday afternoon in succession Saints hit the road in search of their first away win of the 2014/15 season. After the disappointment at Wasps last weekend, Saints will be hopeful of returning with more than the late earned solitary bonus point gleaned at Adams Park.
For their part The Falcons will be seeking their first win of the season, having lost away at Tigers and closely at home to London Irish last week, when they were a missed kick away from sharing the spoils. To be more precise, Newcastle Falcons will be seeking their first win in the Premiership since 27th October 2013 when they edged past Irish 13-11. It’s a dreadful record and their survival in the top flight last time around was entirely due to Worcester being ever so slightly worse! Substitute London Welsh for Worcester and I suspect this season will be much the same as last for Deano’s charges. That’s not to say that they don’t have any quality in their squad and they do have a habit of losing games by slim margins. Our own victory at Kingston Park 16-22 last season is proof of that.
Out wide we will be re acquainting ourselves with Noah Cato and one Alesana Tuilagi, who may have lost a yard of pace but can still put the fear of god into defenders. In Mike Blair at scrum half and Scott Lawson at Hooker they have two seasoned internationals with173 Scottish caps between them.
I suspect the main talking point however, will be their new playing surface, although after the Saints exploits at Cardiff and Barnet in the past couple of seasons, G3 should hold no fears. For the uninitiated (me up until 10 minutes ago) G3 synthetic carpet is laid onto a stone base, porous tarmac layer and shockpad. For rugby a minimum pile height of 60mm is required which is supported by a thin base layer of sand and by an infill layer of rubber crumb. So there you have it……astro-turf, to the man in the street or on the Clapham omnibus.
I suspect, for economic reasons, this type of surface is likely to become more prevalent as time goes by. However, from a personal viewpoint, I hope we don’t see the day when all rugby is played in this way.
So to Saints. I’m not sure what I made of last weeks’ match. Wasps defended heroically but it was still disappointing and man for man we should have been good enough to win. The performance has been dissected on here in some detail so I’ll look forward to Sunday rather than back. I imagine the pack will be largely unchanged although I’d like to see Alex given a start and expect James Craig to take Daisy’s place. Behind the scrum it’s a toss up between Dicko and Kahn and I’d be keen to see Will Hooley get some reasonable game time if circumstances allow. Wilson has to continue his run at full back IMHO and I’d be happy if Jamie, Tom Collins and Stephenson all got a decent run-out.
The very best of luck to all you hardy travellers. I think Saints will win but I’m not going to predict margins having got it hopelessly wrong for our first two matches.
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