By Stockers
May 31 2002

It’s a funny old world! If Saints win this weekend at Bristol in the semi final of the Zurich Championship (the discredited competition that suddenly everyone is taking seriously!) our Captain, Budge Pountney, will be stood down as Captain of Scotland for their summer tour to North America. Having only recently been reappointed Budge could find that Falcons lock Stuart Grimes gets the job instead.

Disgraceful! Outrageous! Who’s running the Scotland team, the RFU??!!

Why is this? Well, the Scotland management, otherwise known as Geech, have decided that it is quite in order for Budge and Mattie Stewart to stay with Saints for as long as they are in the Championship. As soon as our latest run for glory ends, the two kilted Saints leave to join the summer tour.

The Scotland squad leave this Sunday, which means that a victory for Saints on Saturday will see Budge and Mattie staying behind until after the final and joining Scotland a week later. However, as Geech explained to The Scotsman newspaper "We wouldn’t want to change captains at that point, so we’ve agreed that Stuart will remain (as captain), but should Northampton lose it wouldn’t be a problem as Budge would join us on Sunday.

(It might be a problem for us Geech!) Ed

Budge has stated that he agreed with Geech that it would be unfair for him to be tour captain if he couldn’t join the squad on time. He is determined however to win against Bristol this Saturday and get Saints to their second Twickenham final this season but admits that not being able to captain his country is a huge disappointment.

We all hope that Budge and Mattie miss the plane on Sunday.!!

We also hope that they return uninjured and enjoy some time off before pre season training starts.

Bon voyage!