By Mark H
November 2 2003

WARNING - The scenes depicted in this report are not best suited to those of a delicate nature, women, small children, or lovers of good rugby refereed well. All opinions expressed are those of the author, but are based on evidence presented to me at FG and Sky video I’ve just watched. As any rugby fan knows, Stuart Barnes comes out with any old rubbish that comes into his head, and tends to be based on his own personal brand of favouritism. However, he said something during the commentary of the most eventful game at FG for years which was absolutely on the button. Nine minutes into the match, and with Glaws penalised for the sixth time in those nine minutes, he said “I just hope that it’s not one of those days where the referee is the dominant feature.”

If he could see it coming, then it must have been blatantly obvious.

Saints were, for forty minutes, tremendous going forwards. For the next eight minutes, complete and utter anarchy reigned supreme, which is more than you can say for referee Robin Goodliffe. For the next forty-four minutes, Saints were tremendous in not taking a backwards step despite playing for seventeen minutes with thirteen men, and for the remaining time with fourteen. What a pity, therefore, that this game will feature heavily in the media over the next week not for the quality of rugby, but for a number of incidents that will surely bring at least four citings, and potentially as many as seven, and which will consequently decimate both sides of key players for important cup ties in a fortnight.

All due to one decision that the referee admitted not seeing, and relied on the advice of a touch judge for.

If Andy Hazell had received a red card for what could only be described as an assault on Shane Drahm in the 30th minute, then what followed ten minutes later may not have happened. We will never know for sure, however, it would fair to say that the warming kettle would not have reached boiling point had the energy source been extinguished. How did it even get to that stage though? I think mismanagement may have had something to do with it, and to a certain extent, the presence of the Sky cameras…

It wasn’t quite a full house, about a thousand short, but with the standing areas all sold out at the start of the week, and a large number of the Glaws fans already in position at one o’clock, the volume control was going to be on the high side. Saints lost both centres on Saturday morning to flu, so Bruce and Tucks took those positions, Rips moved onto the wing, and John Clarke was added to the bench.

Uncle Geoff broadcast the Remembrance recital to the nation, which was immaculately observed by both teams and sets of supporters, to which we thank all from Gloucester - it is something special and it is appreciated. Perhaps a video of how it should be done should be hand-delivered to Josh Kronfeld on Monday morning.

Saints got a penalty within 45 seconds of the kick off, Henry Paul being caught offside as Saints moved the ball along the Glaws ten metre line. Just the start we needed, as the magic man Shane Drahm kicked the points. Glaws may have made the impact last season by scoring an early try, but it was Saints’ turn this time around. Four minutes in came the first “incident” of the afternoon, and I must admit that I missed this from D Block at the time. Shane tried to take a quick penalty but got a shove from Mr Hazell, and this was picked up by Sky with Lardy saying that he was just letting Drahm now that he would be on him for the whole eighty minutes. How prophetic. Within sixty seconds, Hazell had conceded a penalty for not releasing, and Shane made it 6-0 from the angle.

Straight from the kick off, Dan Richmond was penalised for blocking, but after giving him such a big write-up in the match preview, Henry Paul sliced the kick wide. The game was starting to be a procession of penalties; by the ninth minute, when Glaws conceded again for not releasing, seven had been conceded, and six of those by the Cherry and Whites. One thing was for sure though, and that was that Shane was having a big say in where this game was being played. His kick through for Oriol to chase was exquisite, and the fact that the bounce evaded both Marcel Garvey and Jon Goodridge almost made it into a try-making one, but as Oriol switched inside, he slipped, and with Mark Tucker going down the same channel, the move came to nothing. Five minutes later, another Shane kick was caught by an onrushing Rips who, catching Garvey hopelessly out of position, probably should have gone straight down the line a la Bealer from two weeks ago, but again, he cut inside and was this time stopped by a combination of Goodridge and Garvey, although Garvey did give a penalty away. Goodliffe then issued a warning to Garvey of “If you get on the wrong side and kill it then you will go to the bin”. Now was it me, or did Glaws have no-one binned for technical offences all afternoon? Good to see such consistency still lives in the Premiership.

Shane kicked for the corner, and from the lineout, the much maligned Saints pack drove forward. And forward. And so it continued. In a carbon copy of that try from last season, the mass moved on, a scrum cap flew out (looking suspiciously like Hazell’s), and eventually Chris Budgen (as sponsored by ComeOnYouSaints.com) fell over the line. Shane converted, and Saints were 13-0 up. This was beyond our expectations, but most welcome.

It was to get better though. Shane kicked another penalty on 23 minutes, this time from near halfway, and then five minutes later, kicked another, this time from the angle on the Glaws ten metre line. If ever one man made a penalty though, this was AB’s baby. He drove Adam Eustace back, virtually picking him up, and Eustace was penalised for holding on, probably in shock at what had happened. In between the two penalties though, came what could be classed as a final warning from Goodliffe (if there is such a thing), warning Jake Boer that the next holding offence someone would be in the bin. Well, that worked in Eustace’s case, didn’t it?

And then to the first flashpoint of the match. As Shane cleared from his own 22, Andy Hazell came through on him. On first sight of it, to me it looked like a kung fu style attack. What is certain is that he took Shane out in mid air, driving his knees into Shane’s hips and his forearms to the head. The Church’s Stand rose in apoplexy, and Goodliffe consulted his touch judge Lloyd Jackson . Goodliffe admitted that he didn’t see the incident, but Jackson advised him that he had gone in high with his arms, and that it should be a yellow. Considering he was on the other side of the pitch, and Goodliffe was right in front of the incident, it was a fair call. Totally wrong, mind you. It was compared on Sky to Labuschagne’s taking out of Wilkinson in the England-South Africa match last season, but looked a lot worse than even that. Shane was obviously so effective at his job, that he had driven the Gloucester team to going beyond the levels of decency, and to the edge of eliminating the problem.

To make matters worse, when the penalty came, it was awarded at least ten metres short of where the ball actually landed, and now that our kicker had been taken out of the game, it was left to Air Bruce to step up. It was our day - straight through the middle and 22-0. This seemed to fire Glaws into life, and they seemed to remember that Simpson-Daniel was actually on the field, because for the first time he was given the ball by his midfield partner and asked to do something with it. As a result, Glaws switched the direction of the play 6 times through 9 phases as they tried to find a way through the Saints defensive line of the edge of the 22.

What they did manage to find was AB, and he met Simpson-Daniel with such force that the turnover was forced. Sharky Robinson flipped a short pass out to Bealer, who exploded away as part of a four on one overlap. Experience spoke bucket loads, as he waited until the ideal moment to pass outside to an onrushing Jon Sleightholme. Nothing was going to stop Sleights, and he went over in the corner to make it an astounding 27-0, and virtually secure the points. Bruce missed the conversion, the only kick that would be missed by a man in green all day.

Still Saints went forward though, and after a Garvey knock on Rips, who was having a stunning comeback game, charged down the wing and forced a lineout less than ten metres from the tryline. From said lineout, Saints were held up and got the scrum, but Sharky was then penalised for feeding. Alex Page took a quick tap, passing to Duncan Macrae who was stopped by Shane. There were a couple of swings from the Gloucester man to Shane’s face that knocked his head back, but having been penalised again, Henry Paul tapped the free kick, and from the ensuing ruck, Macrae kicked the ball clear.

Then in the words of the referee, all hell.

Just a starting point here. According to the Sky clock, Andy Hazell was binned and the clock restarted at 32 minutes, 15 seconds. The fight started at 42 minutes, 20 seconds. Hazell had been back on the field for five seconds. Are you really telling me that there were absolutely no stoppages in that ten minutes? I just get the feeling that Hazell shouldn’t have been on the pitch at the time of the fracas, through not having served his time in the bin. Only one man will know that, but I would hope that that is something that the citing commission take into account as well when looking at where the blame lies.

So what happened? Well, I’ve seen the incident about twenty times now and am finding something new every time. What we know for certain (and I‘ve tried to do this chronologically, not by the seriousness):-

Peter Buxton (Glaws 8) reacting to shoving by Chris Budgen on the side of a ruck by swinging an arm at him.

Various punches being thrown in the front row, Andy Deacon (Glaws 3) and Dan Richmond being the only numbers clear on the video.

Three Glaws players laying into Shane Drahm; Macrae (Glaws 10), Wood (Glaws 1), and Hazell (Glaws 7). Drahm reacted with a flurry of punches aimed at Macrae.

Mark Robinson comes charging in and catches Macrae with a forearm to the chest (at pace) which also catches him on the side of the head. Macrae goes down like he has been shot.

Jake Boer (Glaws 6) drags Robinson off the incident (using a swinging arm) and attempts to pin Robinson to the floor, whilst Hazell throws punch after punch , including some whilst Robinson is on the floor. Robinson in turn throws a punch at Boer.

Mark Connors in the meantime is pinning Macrae to the floor so that he can’t get up to exact any revenge.

Far too much going on there for even the cameras to catch everything. What they did catch though, was the conversation between Goodliffe and his touch judges, Stuart Terheege and Lloyd Jackson. Here’s the transcript, as best as I can do it.

RG - “Right boys, I’ll tell you what I’ve seen. First person that I see throw a punch is red 4. After that, all hell.”
ST - “I’ve seen number 9 green run a minimum of 30 metres to knock a red man to the floor with a punch to the face. Thirty metre run, 9 green.”
RG - “What are you looking at?”
ST - “Red card.”
RG - “Thank you. Hang on, don’t walk away.”

The next part of the conversation, Goodliffe with Jackson, is lost under Miles Harrison’s commentary. It then picks up again.

LJ - “Red 12 I also saw clearly punch a green player.”
RG - “What are we talking, yellow for green 12, yellow for red 12?”
LJ - “No, it was no worse than the others.”

Goodliffe then calls the captains together (Beal and Boer), and asks for green 9 and red 4 (Robinson and Eustace).

RG - (To Eustace) “The first thing I see is you throw a punch. I’ll deal with you in a minute. (To Robinson) My touch judge tells me you’ve run a minimum of thirty metres to flatten a man there with a punch.”
MR - “There were three other players, I’ve gone to free a player.”
RG - “There’s a lot more gone off.”
MR - “Okay.”
RG - (To Eustace) “For you, yellow card. Away you go. (Replaces yellow card in wallet, and turns to Sharky) For you…”
NB - (Seeing the red coming out) “No way!”
RG - “Red card. Away you go. Away you go.”
NB - “It was a 15 man brawl, how can you do that?”

And the rest is lost as the mikes are turned down. Looking at the video, Sharky did indeed run from the halfway line, and the force with which he entered the melee will not augur well for him when he goes up before the beak. I would also expect Shane, Macrae, Eustace (although I didn’t actually see what he did either at FG or on the video), and Hazell to be looking at missing a few games (actually, Hazell to be missing a lot. It would be deplorable if he were to play another game of rugby before January). It would be fascinating to know if there were any mitigating circumstances, other than the fact that Gloucester were getting their backsides well and truly spanked, that caused the game to go over the edge. This one, I think, will run and run.

I also think that the game being in front of the cameras will not help what is to come. Sure, at least a lot of the evidence is there, and properly filmed over a range of cameras rather than one or two. However, comments like those from Dewi Morris at half and full time suggest that Sky will now treat this as something to dissect and prove to the world that thuggery is alive and well in the English game, and as such, there will inevitably be some innocent losers who will have black marks put against them for no reason. I’ll pick two out here just to prove it - Buxton did nothing to Budgen that you wouldn’t see in 90% of rucks in every game across the world, and Connors was pinning Macrae down to not only stop him kicking blue blazes out of his mate, but also to try and keep him on the field. What happens just over five minutes after the incident? Connors gets pinged by a man in a TV studio watching a slow motion replay. At least we won’t be able to moan about Bath getting too much coverage on Rugby Club this week…

Back to the game, now down to 14 on 14, and Johnny Howard replaced Darren Fox to ensure that there was a scrum half on the pitch. In the 48th minute of the first half, Sleights breaks away from a free kick and head for the corner. Simpson-Daniel comes in with a great tackle, but Sleights gets to the line - just. As Rips comes over the top to try and force his mate over, Sleights appears to make a double movement but at no point is he held. Touch judge Jackson signals that the try is good, but Goodliffe calls for Uncle Ed in the video booth. Kindly old Uncle Ed lives up to his reputation and doesn’t give Saints anything. Without the Television Match Official, it would have been 32-0, and may have made the second half more comfortable than it was.

Wayne Smith commented on Radio Northampton that the second half performance meant more to him than the first. I think it would be fair to say that by the time the teams ran out again, there was a definite sense of injustice throughout the Gardens - Glaws fans considering their team to be unjustly penalised points wise, Saints supporters believing that Goodliffe had taken the easy option by not carding more. Whatever. What transpired was the true definition of being a Saintsman. You fight for each other, you back each other, you tackle harder, the team is all. Never was the phrase “band of brothers” more apt.

I do think though that tactically Glaws completely ballsed it up in the first twenty minutes of the second half. During that time they had countless opportunities to take three points, but opted to kick for the corner, then from the lineouts they were stopped by a great green wall - every time. Every big tackle, every Glaws knock on, every turned over ball was being cheered as if it were the most important thing that ever happened. As the volume went up, so the “spurut” grew. Goodliffe was doing his best to bring Glaws back into it, but there were occasional shining lights.

Okay, one.

Saints were awarded a penalty on 54 minutes in the D Block corner, which Shane tapped quickly. He was hammered down after two yards though, at which point Andy Hazell threw yet another punch at our man. What did Goodliffe do? Made Saints retake the penalty. Not a word about the punch.

Mr Goodliffe, you bottled it completely and should not be allowed to referee another top level match for as long as I live and breathe. If you are one of the elite referees, then the whole game of rugby in this country is heading for meltdown.

The law of averages said that Glaws had to score a try eventually. That it took until the 60th minute is great credit to the fourteen Saintsmen, but it did rub salt into the wounds, in that it was Hazell, going through a tackle attempted by the now completely battered Drahm, who scored it in the corner. The slugger rubbing salt in. Ironic.

With the lead now down to 20, it was a case of every minute seeming like an hour. A loose Bealer pass was kicked through by Garvey, but Bruce was alive to the situation and touched down for a drop out. A minute later, John Clarke replaced Sleights, and within seconds another Saints player was wandering off the pitch, Mark Tucker being binned for not rolling away when he was being pinned in by a Gloucester player. Unlike Hazell, he would spend 14 minutes off the pitch.

The 13 heroes now had to front up even more. Eustace rucked Howard out of the way, and although I am no way an expert in these things, it looked slightly excessive. No matter, for as the ball came out along the line, Simpson-Daniel knocked on.

The decisions were going thick and fast in Glaws’ direction now. Boer elected to scrum a penalty five metres out in the 70th minute, given for Dan Richmond holding onto the ball. There then followed the greatest piece of scrum play we will see this season. This much vaunted Gloucester eight, the best pack in the game (or so we keep being told), were turned by a seven man inexperienced group fighting for their lives. The only way it could have been better was for it to happen right in front of the Shed. That said, the roar that went up seemed to galvanise the Saintsmen even more, and wake up Nigel Melville. Finally, James Forrester was told to strip off and prepare for action.

In the meantime, AB picked up from the reset scrum, and Howard somehow worked the ball back to Bealer. His kick, from the very back of the in-goal area, was nearly charged down but instead ballooned up in the air right into Shane’s hands. Thankfully, he still had enough energy to run clear and kick the ball long.

With seven minutes to go, Forrester came on. His impact was so immediate that you have to turn round and say that Melville made a huge mistake. Two minutes later he had scored, coming off a series of rucks to get the points. Thankfully for Saints, Henry Paul rushed the conversion and missed it. 27-12, five minutes of normal time to come. Shane Drahm left the pitch to what we thought at the time was a huge ovation - he had done us proud today.

76 minutes. Macrae makes a break, ships out to Garvey who in turn finds the train that was Simpson-Daniel going up the wing. Just like a train, he’s then held up, but for leaves on the line read Oriol Ripol and Bruce Reihana, Ripol performing a minor miracle to turn him onto his back and then get himself between Sinbad’s left arm and the ground. The touch judge said no, Goodliffe thought yes, Uncle Ed made up for his first half decision by advising that it should be a five metre scrum. It was temporary reprieve, with the Glaws pack driving over the line as Forrester expertly kept the ball in long enough to fall on it. Paul again missed the conversion. 27-17, but three tries to Glaws. There was surely not enough time left now to win it?

Relief at last for Saints, with Tucker back on and Chris Fortey dropping the restart. James Brooks put in a cross field kick for John Clarke to run onto, but full back Goodridge got there in time to hoof the ball into touch. From the lineout, the ball was fed along the line to Clarke on the other wing. He was held up, but Boer put his hands into the ruck and Saints had the penalty. Another roar. Bruce kicked it. A louder roar.

AB was announced as man of the match, the first time at FG this season that it hasn’t gone to Shane. He deserved it with a colossal performance, but it could have gone to anyone. There was still time for Glaws to snatch two bonus points though, with a converted try, and they went for it. Boer went blind at a lineout, but when he went to ground, again tackled by Blowers, he clearly held onto the ball for what seemed like forever. The whistle blew…penalty to Glaws for AB not rolling away, and to really prove that he was having a shocker, Goodliffe promptly binned AB. That was not the end of the tale though, for as he went off, the ground rose to acclaim the huge performance that he had put in. Whatever he does in his Saints career from this day on, nothing will erase the memories of that acknowledgment of a supreme performance.

The kick went to the corner again, but this time the ball was knocked forward and the Saints had won. Wendy has never sounded as loud as it was after that final whistle, not even after winning the European Cup. It was the day kids became men, and men became gods. The team took their bow, then came back out for another one.

Ignoring the main talking points, there were some impressive performances on both sides. For Glaws, Jon Goodridge looks to be a very useful full back, and Forrester proved what he can do in the short time he was allowed to play. For Saints, take your pick. Oriol had an excellent return, considering that it was at short notice, and Tucks and Brucie were very solid in the centre.

They were all heroes though - the war had been won, and the good guys had come out on top. As it should be.


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