Northampton Saints
Saints denied at Wembley - Saracens 19 - Saints 16
Jim - diplomatic words
By John Benson Age 32 and a half.
September 13 2009
So the day finally dawned, the first Guinness Premiership rugby game held at the spiritual home of football - Wembley Stadium. 12 of us packed up and headed down the slab to sunny London with high hopes that our first away trip of the season would also be a winning one.
Guinness Premiership round 2.
Saracens v Northampton Saints, Wembley Stadium.
12th September 2009.
When the rumours first surfaced that Saracens were planning to play a league game at Wembley most folk outside of Watford seemed to think it would be played in a mostly empty stadium. You have to hand it to Saracens, getting almost 45,000 people in there was quite some achievement, although the atmosphere was somewhat different to your average Saturday afternoon at the Gardens! Some estimates put the Saints support at over 10,000, more than Sarries get at an average home game at Vicarage Road. The Saintly hordes played their part and were easily seen and heard in amongst the flags and horns. Those who hadn't yet heard the new Saracens song will now be very familiar with it having heard it every single time that play stopped.
On to the match...Shane Geraghty kicked off the first half for the Saints who were playing from West to East. Saracens were penalised for not rolling away and gave the Saints an opportunity to get the scoreboard moving, but the fly half hooked his kick at goal wide of the left upright.
Play moved down to the Saints 22 and after a Sarries lineout Glen Jackson's attempt at a drop goal was charged down by Nacho who just couldn't manage to control the ball and knocked on. Sarries then pushed forward again and Saints then conceded their third penalty in 11 minutes. Luckily Jackson pushed his kick wide of the right post.
Saracens were still running hard and fast and were soon back in the Saints red zone. A Sarries scrum from a Saints knock on turned into several rucks before Jackson pulled back into the pocket and slotted his drop goal for a 3-0 lead.
After the restart Saints moved through several phases of play but the defence was strong and every yard gained made required maximum effort. Ratovou was making a nuisance of himself with some hard tackles but his eagerness to defend resulted in an offside penalty advantage to the visitors. Geraghty took the free drop goal which went over to level the score. Unfortunately when play resumed Scott Gray was penalised for a needless block on Schalk Brits and Jackson slotted the kick to put his team 6-3 up.
The home side were soon on the attack again and when Alex Goode's chip was adjudged to have been knocked dead by Juandre Kruger, Andrew Small awarded another penalty which the reigning golden boot duly converted into another 3 points for the home side.
Back in the Sarries 22 Lee Dickson put the Saints on the front foot with one of his trade mark scampering runs off the base of a ruck. Tonga'uiha collected the offload and steamed towards the line with only Jackson to beat but the pass was forward much to everyone's dismay.
The second half started well with the Saints soon finding themselves deep in the opposition 22 and pushing towards the corner. Noah Cato read Geraghty's pass to Hartley well, he hit man and ball and found himself with no one in front and the ball in hand. Foden gave chase but the winger had a head start and wasn't going to be caught. Having watched the replay my initial reaction was confirmed: in the tackle Cato's arm was round Dylan's neck so the correct decision by the referee would have been to award a penalty but instead he waved play on, the try was converted, and Saints were losing 16-3.
If they wanted to stay in touch in this game the Saints had to score next and that they did. From a scrum Geraghty's inside ball to Digger got us deep inside the 22 and Scott Gray was on hand to drive on through a hole before going to ground. Dickson got the ball away quickly to Geraghty who drew the defence with a lovely delayed pass to Dowson who held off Cato to offload to Jon Clarke who went over in the corner. Geraghty added the extras from out wide and the score was 16-10.
Having taken play to within 5 metres of the Saints line former Saint Chris Wyles was hauled down by Ben Foden and at the ruck Saints conceded a penalty for hands in. Jackson missed the kick. He didn't miss the next one from halfway though after Tiny was pinged for collapsing the scrum much to the big man's disbelief.
Saracens' lack of discipline under pressure was starting to show as Saints pulled back to 19-16 via the boot of Shane Geraghty. With the opposition starting to tire, it looked like we might just sneak a win against 14 men after Schalk Brits received his 2nd yellow card in as many games for killing the ball, sadly Geraghty missed the kick from out wide that would have levelled the score.
The Saints pressure continued and Tiny looked to have scored. It looked very much like the ball was grounded on the line before being knocked loose but the TMO called a Saints knock on. Saracens couldn't clear their lines from the scrum and turned the ball over but Saints were pinged again for hands in the ruck. There was still time for a line out which Courtney stole brilliantly as the clock ticked past 80 minutes. Powerful running from Bruce and Tiny had the away support and the edge of their seats but the defence held and eventually the ball was pushed into touch, and they thought it was all over....and it was.
So we left Wembley with a losing bonus point but most will feel it should have been four. We had Saracens over a barrel in the last 10 minutes but couldn't make it pay. The result can be viewed as progress from last season when the corresponding fixture ended in a 26-12 loss at Vicarage Road but perhaps we deserved more.
Saracens succeeded in pulling in a big crowd and half filled Wembley stadium. There were a good few Bokke sat behind us talking about visiting Vicarage Road next weekend so the Wembley experiment might just have paid off for them.
Reasons to be cheerful: the line out was really firing on all cylinders and the scrum - the source of much worry after last week's game, held its own for the most part. Brian Mujati on for Bonorino in the 2nd half looked very useful and Phil Dowson had another good game. Captain Dylan is silencing his critics with immaculate throwing and plenty of carries. John Clarke is looking like he's almost back to his old jinking weaving self. The missed points from kicks will add fuel to the Myler vs Geraghty at 10 debate, and our discipline has to improve or the likes of Glen Jackson will kick us to death. If we can find the clinical edge that we lacked in the last 10 minutes of this game then surely we can pick up a few big W's on the road this season. COYS.
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