Northampton Saints
News: Amlin SF: Northampton Saints vs Harlequins - Preview
By Robby Richmond
April 24 2014
It's a break from Aviva Premiership action this weekend as Northampton Saints welcome Harlequins to Franklin's Gardens under the floodlights this Friday evening in the semi-final of the Amlin Challenge Cup. COYSDC stalwart, Robby Richmond, takes his own, unique, look at what to expect from the game...
NORTHAMPTON SAINTS vs HARLEQUINS
AMLIN SF: Friday, 25th April 2014 - 8pm (Sky)
FRANKLIN'S GARDENS, NORTHAMPTON
MATCH PREVIEW
This Friday night Saints face Quins in the battle to enter the final ever Amlin Challenge Cup Final and perhaps (if luck stays with us) become an answer to a Pub quiz question that will baffle the majority of the patrons down at the Kabab and Calculator for many a year…
Northampton Saints Vs. Harlequins- Amlin Challenge cup Semi Final
A wiser man than I once said…
You go into a Semi-Final to win it; you go into a Final not to lose.
Therein lies the challenge ahead for Saints this Friday evening, win and the double is on the cards, lose and well we can console ourselves that even the Tigers have never won a treble and that we’ve got bigger fish to fry in the Aviva Premiership. That might be true but has anyone else noticed ‘the batter’ isn’t quite what it was back in January?
Still, onwards and upwards Saints face a side this weekend who know just what it takes to win the Amlin Challenge Cup having won it not once, not twice but thrice overcoming Narbonne, The Clermont Avengers and Stade Francais, who having been runners up in two of the last three finals, losing out to the ALMIGHTY LEINSTER (©Stuart Barnes) seem to have joined our merry band of unlucky Brothers (like the Chuckle Brothers but with all the fun and excitement of Morrissey’s stag do) who get within touching distance of a trophy only to have their hands viscously slashed off quicker than Jaime Lannister can engage in the love that dare not speak its name with his own sister.
Does anyone else wonder if the Lannister’s might be Gloucester supporters?
Last year as the trophy very suddenly went from being an after thought that barely received any attention from SKY to the most important game of the weekend as the ALMIGHTY LEINSTER went on to victory (at home) Whilst I was forced to listen to the most brazenly biased commentary in the history brazenly brazen brazenness.
If you missed it (and I hope you did) the short version of last season’s final went like this - Home advantage is awesome, Jonathan Sexton is awesome (might want to look at the one again Mr. Barnes) Ireland is awesome and everyone else can just suck it.
Right, that’s out of the way. Proof, if any was needed, that I’ve looked at some Wikipedia pages this afternoon. I should point out at this point that I looked on the SaintsTV YouTube page for some additional content to go alongside my written meanderings but sadly at this juncture (Wednesday afternoon) nothing about this weekend’s game has been posted.
Still, never mind. Instead of a dour talking head speaking and saying nothing whatsoever of interest I invite you to read the next cliché ridden paragraph in a gruff and dour northern accent of your choosing as some kind of replacement.
Eey, by ‘eck as like, we’re reet up fer this ‘un and no mistake I tell thee, it’ll be reet grand whun we beat them soft, southern shandy drinking bar-stewards und I can go home, walk me whippet un sup a pint of mild!
And why is this horrendous cliché ridden collection of words, and I use the term loosely, available to you in this match preview? Here’s why…
Now, admittedly I’m not from Northampton and these days we don’t see a lot of Bert Haddon these days on the COYSDC board but if anyone can translate this I’d be much appreciative. Is it important? Is it some kind of code I don’t know about? Will saying it unlock the Arc of the Covenant if Indiana Jones says it whilst dressed in ritual Jewish garb?
And of course I myself am not free of blame either…
Anyway, moving on I can’t tell you who is going to replace Matt Williams on the bench this weekend all I can do is wish him a speedy recovery.
In the meantime it’s a bit of a worry that we face a former Saint this weekend that has made a marvelous recovery himself this season, though unlike Matt’s injury, this is a recovery of form for one hooker extraordinaire, Dave Ward. Now I cant say enough good things about Wardy, a Bath lad like myself.
No, I literally cant say enough good things about him, Quins fans will string me up if I mention the wayward throwing or the weakness at the scrum, y’know, the actual jobs of a hooker, so instead I’ll casually throw some adjectives about and see if that stops them.
I think its best to describe Wardy as hard working, great professional, excellent at the breakdown, strong carrier, intrepid, enthusiastic, lively, nimble and cheese.
Look, I’m not knocking the lad, he’s always been a talented and eye-catching player but he does have a few chinks in the armour.
Meanwhile, his right hand man Kyle Sinckler is a great big unit of a young man whose ample frame and quite frankly massive head have had sides struggling to cope with the big man.
Sinckler really does have a huge noggin. Even bigger than Matt Stevens, and his head has got it’s own moon and weather system. Kyle’s looks like an orange on a toothpick. I hope that’s not too harsh, I wouldn’t want the lad crying himself to sleep at night on the world’s biggest pillow. Still, Kyle has impressed and like our own Waller brothers, might be far away from international honours.
Saints meanwhile can be accused of taking the foot off of the accelerator in recent weeks, the stopped playing after fifty minutes against Irish and didn’t start playing until the last twenty minutes against Sarries, leading to Saints supporters to question if they are capable of closing out games, if the exit strategy is all that it can be.
I think most Saints supporters would agree that on the whole we are slow learners and can often take two or three losses, be exploited two or three times before we fix the problem. Well I fancy I might have come up with a plan to ensure we don’t panic!
It’s really simplicity itself when you think about it, all we do when the tension mounts is put a photo of the late, great Lance-Corporal Jack Jones on the big screen.
Maybe we could get Uncle Geoff to do an impression or two at the restarts?
Better still, we could hand out facemasks like the Tigers did with The Cock! It wouldn’t be a Robby Richmond match preview without mentioning The Cock, and todays is no exception.
Sat at home on Friday watching the Tigers fall to the Quins I kept nudging my mum and saying, he’s gonna blow! He’s gonna blow!
Imagining that The Cock’s bulbous head was going to explode just as it did in that famous scene from David Cronenberg’s classic Sci-Fi horror Scanners. It didn’t, sadly. Though I have high hopes it might before the end of the season, especially if Tim Wigglesworth is the ref!
Thankfully this weekend we’ve got the ever reliable, ever dependable, ever sensible and lots of other words that end in ‘ible’ George Clancy of Ireland so there is hope for Jamie and George to score when having stepped into touch and no hope for us if someone gets lamped as he doesn’t seem to like going up to speak to the TV match official.
A tight and tense affair awaits us all, though not those of us watching it on the tele, we will be getting fifty-five minutes of Dewi Morris salivating over Jonny Wilkinson and then hopefully some team news just before kick off. Dewi Morris, he’s more off-putting than copping a load of Haskellhoff on the front cover of Attitude in Budgie smugglers.
Am I the only one who wonders what it must be like on Valentines Day for Wilko? I hope he’s been able to get the postie a bit of a rub down from the club’s physio after carrying all those bags of love letters from Dewi up to Wilko’s front door.
Sadly, Sky seem more bothered about the other games this weekend, which is a shame in some ways as I fancy this one could be the tie of the round.
Quins really want to win this trophy once more and who knows, seeing as it’s the last one maybe they’ll get to keep it this time? I cant call the winner, there’s 2 or 3 points in it, a mistake in it, but rest assured with match ups like Foden Vs. Brown, Wood Vs. Robshaw, Dickson Vs. Care and Myler Vs. Evans it should make for a very, very, very tense, exciting Semi-Final.
As it should be, two sides that want to win it, not two sides afraid to lose it.
If you are following the game on twitter why not try these Saintly hashtags?
#OWIVECAUGHTMETOEONTHEBLOODYDOORFRAME
#DONTPANIC
#DEWIMORRISINBUDGIESMUGGLERS
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Stumbleupon24/04/2014 11:02
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![[:wor kid:]](/phorum-5.1.15/mods/smileys/images/13.gif "[:wor kid:]")
Watch him closer, Saints will have him popping like a pringles can.
We'll just continue getting our front row off your scrapheap. Works 66.7% of the time...
#MoanIthinkswevegotnochance
#Irememberwhenallthiswasfieldsandithaschangedoutofallrecognition
#lookingatthatteamwerealldoomed
David L
What if there were no hypothetical questions?
- Live wrong and preposterously
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