By RedSaint
March 9 2006

For the first time in very nearly two months, temperatures in Moscow briefly reached the giddy mercury heights of single-figure minus numbers yesterday.

However, as we’re back at a balmy fifteen degrees below today, it’s still going to be at least another six or seven weeks before Muscovy’s pitches have thawed out and I can get to see some live rugby again. If you think going without Saintly action for two weeks is hell, then try living the exile’s life.

 

Two weeks ago was a bad time to be a Gloucester or a Saints fan, particularly an English one. The Lions somehow managed to contrive to lose to Bath yet again, despite their neighbours being shorn of their entire pack. That pack was busy being tackled into submission at Murrayfield. Now my best friend and only fellow Guinness Premiership follower here in Moscow is a Glaws fan, and after supporting both Bath and Scotland two weeks ago I can guarantee that I will suffer should Saints secure anything less than four points on Saturday. Seeing as Saints succumbed to “London” “Irish,” a team who, ‘like Scotland, have somehow convinced themselves that they’re Celtic’ (his words, not mine, I hasten to add) immediately after England did, I’m of the view that the dose of Schadenfreude I was owed has already been served.

 

I can’t put my finger on why exactly, but I always feel a certain degree of trepidation before games against Gloucester. I guess I’m still haunted by the memory of Glaws games past. Indeed, I still have nightmares about the 2003 Powergen Cup Final where James ‘the English Michael Owen’ Forrester did a Dominici and dropped the ball while alone and over the try line. However, whereas the diminutive Frenchman suffered ridicule and humiliation, England’s Welsh-way™ Number-Eight-cum-centre was gifted the try that put the game beyond us.

 

Apparently, the apprehension I feel before games between the two teams is shared by my friend. Northampton are one of the teams the Lions really do not like to lose to. We may rank slightly behind Bath, Bristol and Worcester ‘they think they’re a proper Southwest rugby club’ Warriors (again, his term), in this respect, but there has certainly been an undercurrent in recent games between the two rugby towns. I asked him why, he said it’s stadium envy…

 

I never heard the end of it when Gloucester averaged 10 people more in attendance last year. Of course, those ten extras fans were accounted for by the Henry Paul effect, whereby the paying public were entitled to throw rocks at the Antipodean magician from the Shed. Before, I had never understood why a back would wear a scrumcap. Sadly Henry ‘if he’d been born in Wales he’d be the Welsh Iestyn Harris’ Paul’s indiscipline means he is one of many who will miss this weekend’s game, as he has been sent off in disgrace on Sevens duty, with Glaws fans no doubt hoping he’ll be left in Australia like some post-modern convict.

 

That this game is taking place on week 17 of the GP calendar is notable for two things: 1) Glaws fans are due to start this season’s fifth consecutive repetition of the only chant they know (for the benefit of Pou, who won’t have had the pleasure, drag the monophthongs in GlARh – stUrrrr over the period it takes to listen to the entirety of Wagner’s Ring Cycle and you’ll be more or less there) and 2) it’s an international weekend.

 

Andy Robinson’s daring adventure in team selection has robbed Saints fans of the chance of witnessing the Mephistophelean talents of HRH Tindall in the centre. However, Lardy’s double-barrelled lovechild will still be a clear and present danger in the midfield, in direct competition with the form outside centre in the GP, Saints’ Jon Clarke. (It is rumoured that the Dimson-Spaniel honed his famed sidestep when, at a Glaws training session, Stuart Barnes was dumped in the middle of the pitch with his trousers round his ankles, given a copy of JSD’s try against the Baa-Baas and told to commentate. JSD then had to avoid the incoming like a slapstick-comedian trying to tap-dance away from machine-gun fire.)

 

In addition to losing Mike ‘what does crashball mean?’ Tindall, Gloucester’s other first XV loss is Mefin ‘couldn’t hit Steve Thompson with a banjo’ Davies, though they are also supplying two centres for England U21 duty and the never-present Simon Amor to Melbourne.

 

Ludovic ‘one-syllable-too-many’ Mercier will be calling the shots from fly-half, safe in the knowledge that should he put in a performance at the Gardens like the one he gave against Bath, where he made a blunder of Ronny Rosenthal proportions, then he’ll be incredibly glad that this is an away game. His half-back partner Peter Richards has been putting in some top-drawer performances at scrum-half of late, which explains why he is not playing for England in Paris this weekend. Apparently Gloucester also have some other quick men in the backs, but like cornerbacks in American football, they only touch ever the ball when it is intercepted.

 

Gloucester’s win in the reverse fixture in round 3 was by-and-large attributed to the dominance their pack exerted over the Saints’ after referee Dave ‘five cards’ Pearson decided to send every Saints forward except Chris Budgen and Steve Thompson off for ten minutes. Thompson may not have gone to the bin, but he wasn’t going to pack down the front row either, and as the drama developed the Sky cameras picked up Dean Ryan’s face slowing turning the colour of both the British & Irish and the Gloucester Lions’ shirts, his mild pique, slowly turning to ire before exploding into full blown apoplexy as Saints employed some Budgology to keep the scrums uncontested. Had Saints gone on to win the game, we have every reason to believe that he would have stormed home and crawled under his bed to beat his fists against the floor crying ‘it’s not fair mummy!’ whilst completely forgetting he employed the same tactic himself a season before at Welford Road.

 

And who is Saturday’s referee? Why it’s none other than Dave ‘two tries’ Pearson fresh from a performance in Dublin which confirmed he is trialling new IRB proposed laws fashioned from American football whereby the ball does not have to be touched down over the goal line, instead only having to cross it for a try to be given. I expect he has been sent a library of videos from both coaches for this one. Though of course, that doesn’t matter, the refs look at them as rarely as they look at giving a penalty try when Jamie ‘basketball skills’ Forrester and Rob ‘look no feet’ Thirlby blatantly prevent a try by foul means on their goal line…

 

The Saints pack will be an altogether different prospect from the one that showed up at Kingsholm, with added steel in their performances since the arrival of one Mr. Tupai and the stepping up of others. Should Patrick Collazo, second only to LTA in the GP’s ‘player in possession of the best definition of a Backpfeifengesicht’ stakes, get up to his usual, I would imagine he will be handled a little more uncompromisingly than he has been. Ben ‘Saints have no English players’ Lewitt is off in Oz and the back row will also be short of DB2, thereby losing two lineout options against what will be a strong test with two very competent locks starting for Gloucester in Alex Brown and Adam ‘newest rumoured Saints target’ Eustace. Last week’s captain DB1 will be looking to continue his impressive form as he hands back the captaincy to welcome returnee DB7 Bruce.

 

Neither team has lost both fixtures in a season since Saints won both in 2000/1 (and the year before). Gloucester are fighting to consolidate their play-off place, and although Saints may have seen that particular door close, Heineken qualification is very much attainable, and the home games are must-wins now more so than ever, especially seeing as the organisers of the race to avoid relegation have not yet seen fit to cancel our membership from that elite little club.

 

Some of my favourite ever Saints games have been those against Gloucester, Castle Grim last year and again in 1999/200, the battle of Franklins starring MacRae, Boer and Hazell against Drahm, er, just Drahm, (and later, much later, Sharky) and best of all the ‘never see that again’ 58 pointer in 2002. I’m going to predict either a narrow win for Glaws, (after all, to quote my Glaws friend one last time – ‘the biggest mystery of this year is how Gloucester keep winning whilst being blatantly crap’ – an unheard of admission for a Glaws fan) or that the Saints will tonk them. My money, in a rare bout of optimism, is on the latter, after all, you do know which referee was in charge that April day in 2002 don’t you? That’s right – none other than Dave ‘eight tries for Saints’ Pearson…