London Welsh
London Welsh v Northampton Preview
By Mark W-J
April 11 2013
Round 20 of the Aviva Premiership season finds London Welsh eight points adrift of Sale at the foot of the table. We have to win at least two of our three remaining fixtures, and if Sale beat Gloucester at Salford on Friday then we have to beat Northampton on Sunday afternoon in order to avoid the mathematical certainty of relegation back to the Championship - promotion play-offs notwithstanding.
It’s been well documented that Welsh have lost nine consecutive Premiership matches since we beat London Irish back on 1st December. This equals our longest-ever losing streak in league rugby, originally set from 10th April to 23rd October 2004 and repeated between 14th October and 16th December 2006. During that time Sale have collected 20 points (four wins and a draw) to wipe out the thirteen point lead that we enjoyed over them at Christmas - in itself not the form of title contenders, but similar to the results which we enjoyed in the opening three months of the season. They’ve won four of their last six games at home, and their five defeats at Salford have come against the top sides - Saracens, Leicester, Harlequins, Northampton… and London Welsh. Gloucester are currently fifth in the table, behind the Saints only by virtue of having won one game fewer, but they have lost five of their last six away games since they triumphed 31-25 at Oxford in September, with a solitary win at Franklins Gardens in early February. Sale visit the Gardens next weekend before entertaining Wasps in the final round, while we still have to face two of the other clubs in the bottom four - the short trip next Saturday to Reading to face London Irish, who are unbeaten at home since before Christmas, followed by a visit from our old friends from Worcester on the final day. The Warriors have won only two of their last nine fixtures - including beating us at Sixways pre-Christmas - and are the only team not to have won away in the Premiership this season; however, they have also beaten the Welsh in our last eighteen meetings.
Saints have had another up-and-down season. Three consecutive Premiership play-off semi-final defeats - to Saracens, Leicester and Harlequins, by a combined total of twelve points - suggests that they’re consistently on the brink of breaking into the big-time, and a Heineken Cup final defat to Leinster two years ago only adds to the frustration being felt by their incredibly loyal and vocal supporters. They began this campaign with five straight victories, and many journalists had started to believe that Jim Mallinder - ably assisted by Nobby West and Paul Grayson - had finally cracked the Northampton conundrum. But then, with one eye on a Heineken Cup pool which looked challenging but hardy terrifying, they crashed to a bonus point defeat at London Irish, and suddenly all momentum was lost. Although they recovered from fifteen points down inside half an hour to beat Glasgow at Franklins Gardens, defeat in Castres in round two and a humbling 25-6 (four tries to nil) reverse at home to Ulster saw their hopes of progressing to the knockout stages disappear before Christmas. By that stage Grayson had departed stage left - arguably made a scapegoat for the prevarication over selection at fly-half which has dogged the Saints for the last three or four years. Grayson will be replaced next season by former Wasps and England fly-half Alex King, who is returning to England after five years as Assistant Coach at Clermont Auvergne. That could prove to be the best signing of the 2013-14 season - this time last year he was considered to be the front-runner to replace Andy Farrell in the England set-up when Farrell decided (albeit temporarily) to remain in his role with Saracens. The Saints’ other big-name signing, of course is George North, but many Saints fans, and plenty of neutral observers, have suggested that some of the supposed £250,000 transfer fee due to the Scarlets would be better spent on the acquisition of a top-class fly-half.
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Thumbs up from George
but is he the best signing for Saints?
Northampton are currently fourth in the Premiership table on 54 points, level with Gloucester but two points behind Harlequins. The reigning champions have lost their last three league games, their worst run since the beginning of 2010 - they haven’t lost four in a row since the opening month of the 2006-07 season, when they had just returned from a season’s sojourn in National One - and they host Northampton in the final round of fixtures. Saints have won twelve and lost seven of their nineteen games to-date, although they’ve had a fortnight to dwell on arguably their worst performance of the season when they were absolutely outclassed in every department by their fiercest rivals, Leicester - and in front of their own fans to boot. Their home form has been poor - all four of their top five rivals have emerged victorious from the Gardens - and on top of the aforementioned nightmare at the Madejski they’ve also been defeated at Welford Road and Milton Keynes - bizarrely a ‘home’ game for Saracens despite being five miles closer to Northampton than it is to Watford, and ten miles nearer than Barnet. Thus Northampton have collected 27 points both at home and away this season, and with only one defeat against opposition currently outside the top five in the table they will be expected to extend our misery on Sunday afternoon.
Despite having won almost twice as many games as they’ve lost, Northampton’s points difference is only +14, and only Saracens have collected fewer losing bonus points. To put that into some perspective, Sarries have one losing bonus point from their three defeats, whereas Saints have two from seven - by comparison, Quins have four from seven and Gloucester, the only team to collect at least a point from every match this season, seven bonus points from seven defeats. 390 points conceded is already 16 points more than they let in in the entire 2011-12 season, and while it compares with Quins (399) and Gloucester (386) it is more than 100 worse than Saracens (280) and Leicester (282). The attacking stats are even worse, with 404 points scored putting them seventh overall - Welsh are eleventh, with 337, which equates to just 3½ points fewer per match. Our try-scoring ratio is barely one per game - twenty one in total, seven behind Worcester and London Irish and eight adrift of Sale. Saints, by comparison, have scored 41, the same as Wasps and Harlequins, and one behind Exeter, with Leicester on 44. Twenty year-old winger Jamie Elliott is their top try-scorer with six, helped massively by five in two games against Bath (two) and London Irish (three) in February/ March. He scored against Sale on his Premiership debut as an 18 year-old in November 2010 and crossed again a week later versus London Irish, and twelve months later scored a brace on his Heineken Cup debut against Castres: overall he has nine tries from 19 Premiership appearances, five from eight in the LV Cup, and two from seven in Europe, a strike-rate of almost one try every two games (16 in 34 matches). Although Saints have the fourth-best defensive stats in terms of tries conceded (thirty), 57% have been scored at Franklins Gardens - the biggest home percentage in the league - and 43% on the road - the smallest away percentage. From a Welsh perspective, while our 53 tries against is the worst in the league, they have been scored steadily over the 80 minutes, suggesting that fatigue is not a contributing factor in our poor form. The Saints have conceded a smaller proportion of tries in the first half (30%) and a greater percentage in the second period (70%) than any other side, whereas we have conceded all of our tries roughly equally across the four quarters. [/anorak]
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Saints' top try scorer Jamie Elliott
just caught by Hodgson
Sunday’s referee is Greg Garner, officiating in a London Welsh match for the first time since the first leg of the play-off final at the Mennaye last May: he has refereed Welsh on fifteen previous occasions, and awarded seven penalty tries - only two of them in our favour. He has taken charge of three Northampton games this season, all of them away from Franklins Gardens, dispatching five players - four of them Saints (insert your own pun here) - to the sin bin; Ryan Lamb at Leicester, Dylan Hartley (surely not!) at Exeter, and both Hartley (no, really!) and Courtney Lawes at Sixways. Mr Garner was also the referee during Sale’s exciting 33-33 draw at London Irish last time out, as well as the Sharks’ controversial win over Exeter, when he disallowed two Chiefs tries for forward passes on the advice of the TMO - the first was fairly blatant, but the second was surely only a fraction of one degree past lateral, yet upon such fine margins do our Premiership hopes hang. This is our first home fixture for almost two months, since the heartbreaking 25-26 defeat to Sale - the last minute breakout from our 22 and the try-scoring-pass-that-wasn’t again highlighting the fine margins between winning and losing at this level. In recent weeks we’ve won plaudits from opposing supporters in defeat at Saracens, Gloucester and Bath, but if you can’t win at home to the league’s basement club, a team who have been rooted to the foot of the table for five months and without an away win all season, then it’s going to be difficult to see where your next win is coming from. That’s the situation we now face, yet a minimum of two wins from our remaining three games will be required if we are to retain our Premiership status. It’s been an emotionally draining season at times - and the players have probably suffered almost as much as the supporters!
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Referee: Greg Garner
Assistant referee 1: Stuart Terheege,
Assistant Referee 2: Kevin Stewart
I particularly noted this comment "they're consistently on the brink of breaking into the big time". Quite right, for over 20 years by my reckoning.
Saint til I die
and Sale coach Steve Diamond is already stoking it up -
"Gloucester are a good side at home but their travelling game hasn't been that good. I've reminded our players that we haven't lost to Gloucester since 2001 in Manchester and I want to continue that this week.....'
The last time was for the home game in that same season where Saints romped home to a comfortable win, but Newbury still managed to earn a try scoring bonus point from the fixture - the only team to manage that during that season.
I'd be happy to see a repeat of either of those displays this weekend!! A try scoring bonus point, even if we were the losing side would be a bit ambitious given the try drought, but a win isn't entirely impossible.... Believe....
Looking forward to a great day out.
Linky thing to the pre-match report from Saints
Got to say that the prematch reports have been a far more interesting read than anything that has been produced in the match programmes, whenever I've bothered to buy one... Well done for your efforts throughout the season Mark!!
do not for a moment think that we don't travel with extreme nervousness -it was a tight affair last autumn and we are absolutely certain that a) your team does not lie down, and b) your 10s kick penalties very very well so discipline is vital.
hope everyone enjoys the game whatever the result, look forward to a few good chats pre and post.
I just hope it's a memorable, exciting and enjoyable display of skills (read: I hope our scrum performs brilliantly and grinds them down on a rain-sodden pitch making full use of wind and rain in their eyes for at least half the match). We can still hope.
Replacements: 16. Dan George, 17. Arthur Joly, 18. James Tideswell, 19. Matt Corker, 20. Adam Balding, 21. Rob Lewis, 22. James Lewis, 23. Tom Voyce*.
Surprise selection at 15 and a rare appearance by Voyce.
15 Ben FODEN 14 Ken PISI 13 George PISI 12 Luther BURRELL 11 Jamie ELLIOTT 10 Stephen MYLER 9 Lee DICKSON
1 Soane TONGA'UIHA 2 Dylan HARTLEY (capt) 3 Brian MUJATI 4 Courtney LAWES 5 Christian DAY 6 Tom WOOD 7 Phil DOWSON 8 Samu MANOA
Replacements 16 Mike HAYWOOD 17 Alex WALLER 18 Paul DORAN JONES 19 GJ VAN VELZE 20 Calum CLARK 21 Martin ROBERTS 22 Ryan LAMB 23 Tom MAY
Also worth checking www.wiziwig.tv.
Quote:cd25
Doesn't your coach like to change the props at the last minute? Won't Montanella be starting come Sunday?
Lyn's had some dreadful bad luck with the number of players that have either failed late fitness tests or picked up injuries on the team bus!
Quote:nld
15. Tom Arscot
Surprise selection at 15 and a rare appearance by Voyce.
Going to be irrelevant the way Gloucester are playing
22-6 half time with three tries scored. If they get five points tonight and it must be all over. Two points is probably enough to finish things even though it would remain mathematically possible.
I can hear a creaking trap door....
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