By Mike Hill
December 1 2002

Tigers fantastic home winning streak was finally blown away by a smart and determined Northampton side that outplayed us in every department. The final score was 25-12 with the visitors scoring three tries to none. It has been almost five years since Newcastle were the last team to win at Welford Road in a league match way back in December 1997. For a team so used to being streets ahead of the opposition tigers are now looking worryingly average. Saturday's loss put us in fifth position and it's going to take a lot of hard work for us to get back on track towards the top again.

The game started in familiar style with the kickers exchanging penalties and the forwards exchanging blows. Austin was obviously misreading the script when he began exchanging kicks with Blowers. That petulant display was indicative of how much Andrew Blowers and his fellow back rowers got under the skin of our side. They managed to nullify our attacks by slowing the ball down enough to allow the Saints defence to reform.

A try from Budge Pountney from a short throw at the lineout gave Saints the advantage at half time 13 -6 and they never looked back. This was despite two more penalties by Stimpson that closed the gap to a single point. Rob Hunter's sin binning heralded a spell of pressure by Tigers but the lineout catch and drive was driven back by seven Saints and Tigers were denied.

As the game wore on Leicester got frustrated and any hopes of winning went out the window as they failed to put together any decent phases of possession. Northampton used the short throw to good effect once more and when the blindside defence was tied up replacement scrum half Ian Vass scurried through the gap to score unopposed. Just to rub it in Saints scored again through young centre Chris Hyndman as they contained Tigers within their own 22 for the remainder of the game.

The thunderous look on Deano's face as he stormed up the tunnel at the end of the game showed his disgust at this performance but some of the blame has to rest at his door. Some of the selections were very puzzling. Rowntree starting ahead of Perry was one, Perry has been outstanding in recent games and we missed his powerful drives. Why play Corry out of position at 6 when he is outstanding at 8. Will Johnson or preferably Adam Balding should have played at 6.

Three of the most important positions were wrong 8,9 and 10. Harry Ellis is a great talent and gives his all but we needed someone slightly more reliable in his passing and kicking on Saturday. Tom Tierney would have made a difference and similarly Sam Vesty at 10. Austin has failed too often at fly half to make him a viable option their anymore but in my opinion he is a cracking scrum half so play him there.

Freddie looked too slow and Stimmo isn't comfortable on the wing. Poor Tim looked incredulous when he was subbed. We need him at fullback where he can charge up field and we need Geordan on the wing where he can catch cross kicks and add some invention to our back play.

I would also drop Kafer and play Gelderbloom at inside centre. Glenn is a very under rated player and has never let us down in either defence or attack. When we were playing well at the start of last season he was pulling the strings in midfield. Other than that Leon still offers nothing and the backs in general seemed to have lost the ability to catch the ball and run in a straight line.

We need some new ideas, other teams have worked out how to defend against us and we aren't creating enough chances anymore. It's going to be very difficult to turn things around in time to play Beziers next weekend but I hope we do. As for Man of the Match I thought Martin Corry was the best of a bad bunch.

See you in France.