By The Crusader
April 26 2002

The Crusaders back with another look at the rugby world. This week, Saints to win the Powergen (read it Irish before you pass comment) the trials and triumphs of the Six Nations and a thought for poor old Wasps. Read on.... Northampton Saints will win the Powergen Cup.

There is not a shadow of doubt about it. We only have to show up and that Trophy is ours for the taking.

Sez who? The bookies, that's who. The best odds you can get about Northampton are 4/6 on and some of the experts have us at 1/2 on. Risk £10 to win £5 in a two-horse race? It's Michael Jackson versus Mike Tyson, it's Custer versus the Comanches, it's…….. it's……..

It's hogwash. Either I am missing something, or the bookmakers are barmy.

Examine the facts. London Irish have had a great season and are third in the Premiership. Saints have had a ho-hum season and are sixth.

Irish have won more games than the Saints and they have lost fewer games than the Saints. Irish have scored 120 more points than the Saints and have conceded only 14 more points.

Irish have scored over 25% more tries than the Saints and have conceded 11% less tries.

In the home and away head-to-head, Irish scored 63 points to Saints' 36 points. In those two matches, Irish scored 7 tries to Saints' 4.

So Northampton are improving? In their last 4 league games, Saints have won two and lost two, while the Irish have won three and lost one. In those four games, Irish scored 25% more tries than the Saints, and 34% more points.

You've got to love those Irish fans. They will have us believing that their plucky little team are shaking in their shoes at the prospect of facing those big, rough Northampton bullyboys. They will have us stifling a sob as we learn about their injuries and their inferiority complexes.

The London Irish fans are full of charming blarney from the tips of their toes. The London Irish team are something very different and their objective is to beat us. The record shows that the Saints are underdogs and the bookies have got it wrong.

So let's all take a large spoonful of reality and get ready for a scrap!




We saw some wonderful rugby in the Six Nations tournament. I know that it's all a little unbalanced, with England and France stretching away from the other four nations.

I can live with it. I'm English, and I'm old enough to remember the humiliations handed out to my heroes by those magnificent Welsh teams in the Seventies. I grinned and I bore it and now it is payback time.

It's an uphill struggle for Italy, but I am glad they have come into the fold. They never give an inch and in Troncon, Dominguez and Bergomasco they have players that enhance the tournament.

Never underestimate how tough it is for rugby to make any headway in Italy. My work takes me close to Treviso quite frequently. The town of Treviso is home to Benetton, who own all the local sports teams. Benetton have funded excellent facilities and my driver took me past the rugby ground, which resembles The Stoop.

Benetton Treviso have dominated Italian rugby for years. I asked my driver if he had ever watched them play. "Never" he replied. "Do you know any of their players?" I asked. "I am sorry, no" he replied. "But I can tell you the names of everybody in the basketball team and the soccer team!"

He was born and bred in Treviso, and totally unaware of legends like Michael Lynagh and David Campese performing on his doorstep.



It's a curious thing about the 6 Nations. I enjoy the matches but they never totally stir my spirit.

Maybe it would be better if I could watch an international match without any Northampton representatives. I find myself riveted to the Saints. "Don't miss that tackle, Ben." "For pity's sake, throw it straight, Wally" "Please don't get injured, Matt".

Am I alone in knowing that if I was offered a plum seat on a beautiful day at Twickenham with every luxury on tap, I would much prefer to be frozen and soaked at Franklin's Gardens on a gloomy January afternoon, watching my Saints slug it out with a ZP rival?



I'm really uncomfortable with New Zealanders playing for Scotland, with South Africans playing for England, with Tongans and Samoans playing for New Zealand, with Argentinians playing for Australia.

I wish Budge had not been encouraged to play for Scotland because his granny came from the Channel Islands.

Don't ask me to explain - I can't! But deep in my heart I want it to be the way Yorkshire Cricket club ran their affairs. If you were born in Yorkshire, you qualified. If you were born anywhere outside Yorkshire, you could look forward to a stellar cricket career, but it would not be with Yorkshire.

There's nothing racist about it and I accept that some great players would be denied the stage their skills deserved.

But there is something demeaning about this unseemly scrabbling through aunts and uncles and grannies and grandpas to establish some tenuous link with a country you never gave two figs for when you were a kid.



When you are at Franklin's Gardens, roaring the Saints on as they smudgerate Gloucester, pause for a moment to think of Wasps.

Then count your blessings.

Like Gloucester fans, like Leicester fans, we are lucky enough to have our own home in a town that cherishes it's rugby club and where we expect to build on past traditions with new achievements.

Wasps are a fine and long established club, whose teams and supporters have graced rugby over the years.

After many seasons at that ramshackle home in Sudbury, they found themselves tipped out of North London and over to Shepherds Bush in the less-than-lovely Loftus Road.

In no time at all, it's time to move on. Having come to terms with a possible move to leafy Bucks and the charms of High Wycombe, one rogue vote spins the club around and they find themselves staring at The Stoop.

Maybe.

When a club is compelled to lead the life of a gypsy, it places huge demands on the loyalty of fans, staff and players. The local support that the club has nourished over the years is left behind and the links that have been forged with the local community are broken.

They must roll up their sleeves and start again.

Those of us fortunate enough to have a fine stadium, to be part of the fabric of the town we belong to, can only marvel at their tenacity and wish them well.