Well, for a start, we might as well have left the backs in the changing rooms. The forwards were used well, but far too often in my opinion. We rarely moved the ball past Vass, and when we did, it was all very flat and one-dimensional. I feel sorry for Lamont and Wyles because the times they scored their tries were the five seconds they actually received the ball.

Secondly, Parma put on a better performance than what I presume they did last week. They defended well, put in lots of effort and were clearly intent on playing a damage limitation game after what happened to them the previous week. They didn’t want to be embarrassed on their trip to the home of Carlsberg and shoes and they most certainly weren’t.

The game started at three o’clock, sun shining despite the portents of doom from the weather people, with the Saints back in this year’s horrible home strip and Parma turning up in sailors’ shirts that made them look a bit like that baddie from ‘Popeye’. And the sailors seemed to get off to the better start. Despite winning their own lineout, the Saints were pushed backwards for the first five or so minutes. The only thing that was really going their way was the lineout, which we were proceding to win every single one of, including the Italian ones. Finally, we managed to get back into the Parma half and put together some play. After some sustained pressure, Mr Spencer, from his new home at number 13, chipped behind the Italian backs, and when the Sundance Kydd danced past the Parma full-back to leap on the ball, the Saints were ahead after the conversion by 7 points.

However, it was not that long before Parma were back up the Saints end, and when the Jimmies managed to touch the ball down over their own line, the Italians were set up nicely for a pushover try. However, our forwards had the edge over their forwards and when Parma gave a penalty away for diving over the top, the stadium gave a sigh of relief.

Now it was time for our men to show the Italians what to do. Back up to the Sturtridge end and we see the Saintly ones on the attack and camping on the Italian line. It looks like we’re almost about to score, but that’s just what we’d be expecting them to do. Instead, we run into our own man five feet from the line and our chances are wasted.

Coming up next: ten minutes of total tedium. We have a scrum five metres from the line. We set up for it, we engage and the scrum almost immediately collapses. We set the scrum up again, and it falls again. Repeat the previous for nearly ten minutes and you have about twelve and a half thousand people bored out of their minds. The scrum has not moved an inch and the referee has finally decided to send Mr German Fontana, the Parma loose head, to the bin. A couple of agonisingly boring minutes later, the Scottish official decided he had had enough, jogged to the posts and gave the men in green a penalty try. Not that they cared, they’d all fallen over from the boredom. Los converted and we were fourteen-nil up after thirty minutes-ish.

And it wasn’t long again before the Saints were back on the attack, in the familiar form of Carlos Spencer, breaking past the Italian backs (I would tell you their names, but they didn’t have them on their shirts and I doubt I’d be able to spell them anyway). He was ready to give it to Monty when, lo and behold, he gets tap tackled, forward passing it to no-one in particular. However, we were soon back up and in the last few minutes of the first half, Digger bounced off every single Parma player he could find before bouncing over the line and bouncing up and down in celebration, leaving the Saints with a bouncy cushion of 19-0 at half time. (Diggers like to bounce - Ed) Not exactly where we expecting to be though. I scouted the F block for some opinions of the play so far, and came back with the words “turgid”, “pedestrian”, “dire” and “hopeless”. The fans were clearly displeased, and the Saints responded almost immediately.

After a mildly hilarious mistake by Robuschi, the Parma full-back, whereby he generously tapped the ball with his hand into touch for us, the Saints were set up for a push to the line. After a few phases, the ball was launched to Christopher Wyles on the wing, who elaborately leaped over in the corner. Los couldn’t quite add the extras, but most importantly, the Saints had completed their main task of grabbing the four try bonus point. Now they could relax (perhaps) and play as they wanted.

But it took them a long time to do it. Parma were now clearly looking to concede as few points as they possibly could, and after holding up a twenty metre rolling maul from the Saints, the subsequent scrum rolled into touch; partly because of the Italians pushing it that way, but also partly because Sharky forgot he was a scrum-half and didn’t retrieve the ball from the back of the scrum.

Soon though, despite a shocking pass that nearly caused Parma to score some points, the Saints scored again. Pushed on by the replacements, Easter and Hartley, TheTonganThat’sComingOverTheHills™ bundled himself over. Los got the conversion from out wide and the Saints were 31-0 up.

But this didn’t stop the Italians from trying to put some points on the board. They were soon up the Saints end of the pitch and only a knock-on could stop the Saints conceding a try after a superb forward drive. A few minutes later, Saints’ defence was yet again tested when another wildly thrown pass was intercepted by Luke Tait, who cantered down the wing and looked as though he would finally gain some points for the Italians. But, despite being twenty metres away and twenty feet shorter, little Paul Diggin scampered across the pitch and launched himself at the massive lock. The tackle was immense and forced the Italian backwards, meaning the Saints were ready to survive another few minutes, which is all they needed to do to be honest.

The Jimmies weren’t finished just yet either. They wanted to finish the game on a high, finish it off in style, and they did just that. In the last minute of injury time, the Saints made a break. The ball came to the backs (and the obligatory forwards standing on the wing) and after several improvised, spectacular and forward passes, Monty sprinted past the cover and dashed over on the wing. Johnny Howard missed the conversion, but the Saints had won 36-0. Nowhere near as comprehensive a victory as many, or indeed all, were expecting, but let’s look at the facts.

We were playing a lot of our team in unnatural positions. The Parma players defended superbly for a lot of the match. There were some great individual performances from various players: Diggin, Wyles and TheTonganThat’sComingOverTheHills™ spring to mind. Hartley and Easter worked hard when they came on. Granted, we will have to play a lot better if we want to beat the Pests on Friday, but am I sufficiently worried to lose all hope in the Saints? No. We got the job done, and I don’t think anyone can argue with that…

St. Nick’s Man of the Match: Paul Diggin