Northampton Saints
News: AP: London Wasps vs Northampton Saints - Match Preview
By Nigel Scott
October 21 2010
After a successful foray into Europe in recent weeks, Northampton Saints return to Aviva Premiership action this weekend with a visit to Wycombe on Sunday to play London Wasps. Message-board contributor Nigel Scott looks ahead to the game...
LONDON WASPS v NORTHAMPTON SAINTS
24th OCTOBER 2010
MATCH PREVIEW
This weekend, it’s back to the bread and butter of the Aviva Premiership after two weekends of the delights of the Heineken Cup and what a mouth watering proposition it is – a likely full house in a traditional rugby ground with plentiful easy access in a rugby mad town.
Hang on, I’ve just realised it’s at Adams Park / Causeway Stadium / that dump at the end of an industrial estate (delete as applicable), where Wasps have struggled to attract the crowds thus far this season and not Franklin’s Gardens, so I might need to have a rethink of the opening paragraph before this gets published.
Right, that’s enough of the “traditional” style Wasps match previews usually found on this site since, as most of you will know, I was born a Nick Beal drop goal from Wasps historic headquarters in Repton Avenue, Sudbury (now a housing estate with a cursory nod to the past with roads named after Chilcott, Compton and Hastings) and I have been known to sneak in an odd pro Wasps comment or three onto COYS and the majority of this preview was written on Sunday evening after my return from watching their match with Glasgow.
The two teams have had contrasting first quarters of the league season with the Saints starting like a runaway train with 3 good wins before hitting the buffers against Saracens then a curate’s egg performance against Exeter, although of course the final 20 minutes of the latter game was magically transformed from a competitive rugby match into a referee’s tai-chi demonstration from Mr Doyle.
By contrast, Wasps season has been “stop-start” with an opening day draw against Harlequins, a defeat at Newcastle followed by a memorable comeback victory in front of the TV cameras against Leicester, before two matches decided by dying moment kicks from Dave Walder, the first a penalty dropping short of the posts resulting in a two point loss at Gloucester before a successful drop goal securing a one point victory at Edgeley Park, a result which probably prompted Shaun Edwards to allow the players a choice of extra toppings with the pizza orders on the way home to London.
The two clubs’ Heineken campaigns have followed very similar paths to their respective starts to the Aviva season. In very similar pools setting the sides against French, Scottish and Welsh opposition, Northampton have maintained a 100% record, albeit with no try scoring bonus points, despite being behind in both matches for large parts of the first half. Wasps ran defending champions Toulouse close in the south of France in week 1 and had the chance to claim an unexpected win through a late Dave Walder kick (sound familiar?) before a dominant bonus point victory against Glasgow in week 2.
Both sides next face back to back tussles with Welsh opposition in December and it already looks imperative for Wasps to claim at least 9 points from the 2 matches against the Dragons if they are to have a realistic hope of overhauling Toulouse and maintaining their interest in the top flight competition past January, although neither Wasps nor Toulouse should take their mid-winter trips to Firhill for granted.
RECENT HISTORY
Saints record at High Wycombe is, to say the least, poor, with just a draw in February 2006 to set against 6 regular season and 2 play off defeats, with the last victory on Wasps territory coming at Loftus Road in December 1999. Saints returned with just a losing bonus point last season from a 20-15 point defeat despite a strong second half performance that saw Saints come back from 17-3 down at the break and only desperate Wasps defence, including a crunching last ditch tackle from Lachlan Mitchell on Chris Ashton which saw the Wasps man stretchered off, prevented Saints from getting more reward from the trip.
Last season’s return match at the Gardens was a nip and tuck affair with two late Stephen Myler penalties rescuing Saints (then) long unbeaten home run, seeing them run out winners by 14-9.
AND SO TO THIS WEEKEND
The head honchoes’ selection policies have been poles apart in the first 7 weeks of the season. While Jim Mallinder has put his faith in pretty much the same 23 players (EPS and injuries aside)throughout the period with 21 of the side being on the team sheet for at least 6 of the matches and has names just 29 players in total, Tony Hanks has, by accident or design, had much more of a rotational policy, with the corresponding figure for such appearances being 16 with the number of players named in at least one squad being 33. So which of them is right? Maybe Jim believes that his conditioning team have got it right and the perceived bad end to last season will not be repeated this time around. Or perhaps Tony is going for the tried and tested Wasps approach of just doing enough to get the side into the play-offs and then hoping the side will peak in the second half of May. Of course, that can be a dangerous game if, like last season, the side blows hot and cold in the early spring with 3 losses in 5 games to blow their chances out of the water. Well, the answer is “Who Knows?” Come back and ask me when the two sides meet at Franklins Gardens on the last weekend in March, when doubtless things will be clearer.
As I am preparing the majority of this preview on Sunday evening, due to my being away from Monday morning until Tuesday evening, my predictions of teams may not take into account up to the minute news of injuries, citings or EPS restings. Both clubs will, I believe want to put down a marker in this game, with only one more match before the Aviva season returns to hibernation for the autumn international season and the LV cup. I expect the line-ups to be close to the strongest available for both sides.
In the front row, Charlie Beech made his first start of the season against Glasgow, but now that Tim Payne has completed his two week stint on the naughty step, Charlie will probably have to make do with a berth on the bench for the 6th time this season. On the other side of the front row, both teams will have big name absentees with Euan Murray being unavailable as the match is being played on a Sunday and Phil Vickery still recovering from a bout of shingles.
Completing the front fives, it appears that any Saints fans wanting to see how James Cannon has progressed will have to wait as Richard Birkett has started in 5 of the 7 games to date.
In the backs, the battle of the scrum halves will be interesting, with current Wasps incumbent Joe Simpson having the look of a latter day Matt Dawson and, if reports are to be believed, the same penchant for letting the referee know what he should be doing. My line-up predictions are:-
Mark van Gisbergen 15 Ben Foden
Richard Haughton 14 Chris Ashton
Dom Waldouck 13 Jon Clarke
Riki Flutey 12 James Downey
Tom Varndell 11 Paul Diggin
Dave Walder 10 Stephen Myler
Joe Simpson 09 Lee Dickson
Tim Payne 01 Soane Tonga’uiha
Rob Webber 02 Dylan Hartley
Ben Broster 03 Brian Mujati
Simon Shaw 04 Courtney Lawes
Richard Birkett 05 Christian Day
Joe Worsley 06 Phil Dowson
Tom Rees 07 Tom Wood
Andy Powell 08 Roger Wilson
And on the bench:-
Wasps – Charlie Beech, Joe Ward, Ben Broster, Sakaria Taulafo, James Cannon,
Serge Betsen, Nic Berry, David Lemi and Ben Jacobs
Saints – Brett Sharman, Regardt Dreyer, Tom Mercey, Callum Clark, Mark Easter, Ryan Powell, Shane Geraghty and Joe Ansbro
See you there? Go on, you know you want to frequent those nice bar marquees, especially if it’s a nice cool day! There’ll probably be tickets available on the day if you make a last minute decision. For anyone interested, the Wasps matchday programme is a real heavyweight publication – the Glasgow issue ran to 100 properly bound pages for £3 (A5 portrait), although the thick end of 40 pages were advertising. You might even be fortunate enough to spot me handing over the shirt off my back from SWH9 to Steve, the lucky winner of the draw.
PREDICTION
Saints to put to rest the Adams Park hoodoo and to win by 3.
Had you going there, didn’t I? – Got to be Wasps by 10.
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David L
What if there were no hypothetical questions?
- Live wrong and preposterously
No alcohol for January. I'm a dryathlete in aid of cancer research.
Dryathlon
21/10/2010 13:37
I think most of us would prefer to see Haughton at 15 with Lemi on the wing and giz perhaps on the bench in case his goalkicking is required. (personally I'd rather pick kefu on the bench and let simspon goalkick if needed)
I think the consenus at wasps at the moment would also be that Jacobs is our form centre - he's in outstanding form. He may get to put his feet up in the name of rotation but I'd prefer to see Riki at 12 and jacobs 13 with Dom on the bench.
Quote:white lion
Enjoyable preview Nigel, although Ben Broster can't be in the starting 15 and on the bench.
oops, knew I should have checked it better, my handwritten draft teams clearly had Sakaria Taulafo on the bench, my excuse is I'd had a long day by the time I typed it up!
I'll go and amend the bench!
Good read, btw. Thank you, Sir!
David L
What if there were no hypothetical questions?
- Live wrong and preposterously
ClaireJ
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