Northampton Saints
MoTM: The road trip Pt 2 - Glaws away.
By Saint Tim
April 24 2011
The road trip from hell part 2 brought Saints to Gloucester on a warm Tuesday evening. This was the rearranged game with the previous game having fallen foul of the unseasonably cold December weather it was to be played in unseasonably warm April weather. Gloucester were on the back of a very good performance by their second string at Leicester and they had a vociferous crowd as well to help against what was largely a second string Saints team with a very heavyweight bench.
Who was your MoTM as Saints lost away to Glaws?
It was all set up to be a bit of a pounding with Saints being the sacrificial lambs. Fortunately for us the boys didn’t think that way and it was Saints who scored first thanks to debutante starter Waller. Alex has obviously been taking tips from Tiny and Mooj the way he went for the line. It was rather unfortunate then that Saints had a couple of defensive lapses which let Gloucester score easier than they should have been tries. I am not going to blame Tonks for the first as he was playing out of position but he was out of position on the field leaving a big gap which Gloucester exploited. To be fair to Tonks he put in some crunching tackles later and was not exposed as badly again.
The half time score was 17 – 8 and I, like I am sure many Saints fns, wondered that if we could hold it to this for twenty minutes and then bring on the cavalry that a win was a possibility.
Unfortunately that was not going to be the case and the tractor boys scored another 10 points in the opening 10 minutes of the second half. This led me to thinking was it worth bringing on the cavalry? Well Jim and Dorian obviously hadn’t given up and from 55 minutes the replacements started to be introduced. They had a huge impact and from that point on the game was played almost exclusively in the home teams half. Saints did score through Dickson but it was really a tale of what could have been. Dylan and Tiny both had try scoring opportunities. Dylan’s was placing the ball over the line when the ball hit a Gloucester players leg and was knocked from his grasp. Tiny just lost control as he went over. It was thus a case of what could have been as Saints left with nothing from the West Country.
So, who caught the eye?
Three people make the podium this week – In third was Captain Calum Clark with almost 17% of the votes. Calum is almost an ever present in the team this year and he is being given increasing responsibility and was Captain for this game despite Bruce playing. This shows the coaches see him as one for the future. I was particularly impressed with his interview after the game. You can catch it on the offy if you want to see if you agree.
In second place was the most experienced player on the pitch for Saints in former Captain, All Black and all round Saints legend Bruce Bruce Bruce Reihana. Bruce got 22% of the votes. I am one who waiting to see if Bruce will still be part of the Saints next season.
The winner was a young man making his first starting appearance for the first team and he was also first on the score sheet as Saints got off to a good start. Alex Waller is a young man for a prop at just 21 years of age but he looks as string as an ox – I mean look at those muscles in his legs (this is on the assumption I have the correct photo by the way). Alex drove over to score and it was not an easy one and it took strength and commitment. Alex is going to be one dynamic prop as he matures as he got around the pitch with elan as well. Well done Alex the sixteenth winner of the season having got just under 30% of the votes.
It was a very quick turn around and a long way to go – although it was on ESPN – so my thanks to all 54 who voted.
Round Up
Stephen Myler continues to lead with four wins ahead of Brian, Digger and Roger who have three each. With three guaranteed games left (including Irish of course) it is still a wide open competition for the top step.
Full Result
Previous Winners
Vote History
Who wins?
Leaderboard
Players Used
After banging on for so long that we had used 36 different players for this game we added another to that roll call and he went and won the poll. So that now makes it 37 different players for the season. I do notice however that after 31 games we still have four players who have missed four or fewer starts. There is very obviously a starting team – the so called cup final team. A number of players who are quality squad players and then unfortunately it does look like the tail is a little light and this means Jim cannot rotate as much as he and we would probably like. The question is how do you balance the need to improve the squad with the restrictions of the salary cap?
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