By Sparkie
October 4 2002

Cool-hand Gats fired a warning shot across Franklin's Gardens' bow by naming an unchanged side as early as Wednesday afternoon! After our stroll in the sun last weekend at the Madstad, Wayne Smith's charges should provide the kind of test that Irish couldn't quite muster. Not one to miss a trick, Smudger Smith has named a strong Saints team already as well, so it's even-Stevens in the war of psychology. What can we expect from the game? Saints' pack has a steely edge to it. The front row will not be bettered throughout the land: Dowd-Greening-Green against Smith-Thompson-Morris is going to be a battle to savour, particularly ex-England versus young incumbent -- Greening against Thompson.

Perhaps the most eagerly awaited duel will be between Wasps' Welsh wizard, Rob Howley, and England's Saint Ref, Matt Dawson. One gets on with the job, sniping behind the pack with deadly intent and the other keeps up a running chat-show while attempting to do the same. Most of the time Daw's mind is on the job but now and again it goes off on a tangent when his team is counting on him. LBND is guilty of backchat at times too, but he doesn't tend to lose his focus as often, at least, not until the sin-bin beckons.

Saints' Scottish links are still there in the shape of Smith, Pountney and Leslie but Moir, Rennick and Webster have been lured northwards to be closer to Geech. In comes flanker-cum-lock, Mark Connors, from Queensland Reds - a fellow who was almost known to us last season if only he could have extricated himself from his contract with the ARU. No sooner had he done so this year then Bath, the club to which he was reportedly signing, turned round and axed the move. The former Red is a qualified lawyer -- legal proceedings against Bath may ensue. Northampton stepped in and offered him a deal. I would presume that both parties are more than happy, given Bath's recent predilection for plumbing the depths and drawing at home.

Last season's game heralded Saints' recovery from a start that was almost as dire as ours. Unsurprisingly, the match was littered with mistakes. Saints took advantage of ours and began to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. One could argue that it was a pivotal result as Northampton finished just a few points the better of us and qualified for the Heineken Cup. We led briefly in the game but our winter of discontent continued due to our continuing weaknesses. This time round both clubs are in ruder health. If we can keep our discipline and iron out some deficiencies at the restarts and lineouts, then we should be able to steal the game, as we did two seasons ago.

Teams:

15 Paul Sampson; 14 Shane Roiser, 13 Stuart Abbott, 12 Mark Denney, 11 Josh Lewsey; 10 Alex King, 9 Rob Howley; 1 Craig Dowd; 2 Phil Greening 3 Will Green, 4 Simon Shaw, 5 Richard Birkett, 6 Joe Worsley, 7 Paul Volley, 8 Lawrence Dallaglio (Capt.)

Bench: 16 Martyn Wood, 17 Mark Van Gisbergen, 18 Kenny Logan, 19 Ben Gotting, 20 Darren Molloy, 21 Joe Beardshaw, 22 Mike McCarthy.

Stains Team

15 Nick Beal; 14 Oriol Ripol, 13 Peter Jorgensen, 12 John Leslie (Capt.), 11 Ben Cohen; 10 Paul Grayson, 9 Matt Dawson; 1 Tom Smith, 2 Steve Thompson, 3 Robbie Morris, 4 Steve Williams, 5 Mark Connors, 6 Andrew Blowers, 7 Budge Pountney, 8 Mark Soden

Bench from: Dan Richmond, Matt Stewart, Jon Phillips, Rob Hunter, Grant Seely, Johnny Howard, Mark Tucker, James Brooks and Jon Sleightholme.

Previous results: Wasps v. Saints

  4 May 2002    17 -  6    Loftus Road 
  8 Dec 2001    10 - 23    Franklin's Gardens 
 30 Dec 2000    21 - 18    Franklin's Gardens 
  1 Oct 2000    53 - 17    Loftus Road 
  9 May 2000    54 - 12    Franklin's Gardens 
 29 Dec 1999    15 - 21    Loftus Road 
 13 Apr 1999    15 - 24    Loftus Road 
  7 Nov 1998    21 - 26    Franklin's Gardens 
 26 Apr 1998    31 - 15    Loftus Road 
 27 Dec 1997    10 - 18    Franklin's Gardens 
 26 Apr 1997    26 - 15    Franklin's Gardens 
 28 Dec 1996    18 - 13    Loftus Road 
 22 Apr 1995    13 - 19    Franklin's Gardens 
 29 Oct 1994    27 - 21    Repton Avenue
 23 Apr 1994    24 - 11    Repton Avenue
  4 Dec 1993    17 - 15    Franklin's Gardens 
 27 Mar 1993    20 - 12    Repton Avenue
 28 Mar 1992    15 - 28    Franklin's Gardens 
 23 Mar 1991    21 - 21    Repton Avenue

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