By Saint Tim
November 21 2010

It is nice to have a relatively unknown team arrive at the Gardens.  Far too often we play the same old teams.  This latest incarnation of the Anglo Welsh cup pits us this year against the Newport Gwent Dragons as the welsh team, as opposed to the Ospreys last season.  The Dragons had a somewhat difficult birth as a region mainly due to the full name and the local rivalries.  But I suspect it would have been the same in the RFU had push through regionalisation in England and put us together with Tigers as the East Midland Tigers or some such.

It was our day to remember all those who have falle in the service of our country.  Always a poiniant time for the Gardens faithful.

Pick your MoTM as Saints slew the Dragons in the LV Cup!

Both teams had players missing due to injuries and international call ups but the Dragons fielded very much a developmentsecond string team (as Saints had last week) whereas Saints brought put the strongest team they could. The question was would this be a mismatch?  Some thought it was going to be a walk in the park, or the Gardens if you like.  Certainly the forwards were a mismatch at the set piece.  They pushed back every scrum, well every one that didn’t go straight to ground – but despite this forward domination the backs never really managed to get going with what little ball they had and we were not treated to a feast of running rugby.

The Dragons defended like demons but offered even less in attack than the Saints were managing.  Saints were attacking the Stutridge in the first half and from my position near the 22 at the South Stand end I was getting a crick in the neck from forever peering down the other end of the pitch.

I am trying not to criticise refs this year and I am sure that he was technically correct when he binned the props but the final result was that we ended up with uncontested scrums.  I hate and detest these – they remove such a vital part of our game of rugby.  I now some blame the ref for this and claim that it cost us a bonus point but the painful truth is that he probably had no choice under the laws and it was our inability to create that cost us the bonus point.   The final score was 28 – 3 with tries from Digger, Myler and Calum Clarke.  The most that could be said of Dragons is they were lucky to get the 3.

It really was an odd affair and a most unsatisfactory spectacle all round.  Never been so disappointed with such a win.

So, who caught the eye?

Firstly thank you to the 76 people who voted - it really is appreciated.

In third place this week with 12% of the votes was Brian Mujati.  Once again Brian had his opposition on toast.  It didn’t matter who they put up against him he gave them a torrid time.  I know we are all enjoying seeing such dominant forwards – but we really now need to work out how to utilise it to really put the scores on the board.

In second place was Shane Geraghty with 16%.  Shane was playing out of position at full back and he was full of running and in many ways was the only incisive back.  He made one flying break only for the infamous FG Sniper to cut him down in full flow.  It was a moment of humour but in some ways in summed up our night.

Here is Shane heading turf wards just after the sniped hit.

Here is a better shot for Shane J

The winner this week was Stephen Myler.  Stephen controlled the game with an assured touch.  His positional kicks were excellent, keeping the Dragons pinned back.  He seems to have found a way to get much more distance on his penalty kicks to touch, almost Bealer like.  He also scored another try, his second of the season after the one at Wasps.  Stephen is a player that seems to thrive on competition.  He isn’t the finished article but he is a damned fine player as 50% of you agreed and voted for him.

Full Result

Previous Winners

Vote History

Who wins?

Nice to see the half backs making an appearance.

Leaderboard

Players Used

Saints V Dragons MoTM

Discussion started by ComeOnYouSaints.com , 21/11/2010 13:50

ComeOnYouSaints.com
21/11/2010 13:50

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010:11:24:12:59:50 by Phil..

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Phil.
24/11/2010 13:01

To my shame I've only just read this, Tim.

Another fascinating article, good Sir!

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Howlin
24/11/2010 13:12

If I read the stats correctly we have had 9 different winners in 11 games and not one player has played in all 11 games ? (or was one of the wins shared ?)

Speaks volumes for the depth and quality of the squad.

Saint til I die

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Saint Tim
25/11/2010 07:35

No wins have been shared Malc. There have been 11 games and 9 different winners.

You can see the winner of each game in the section called Previous Winners.

We have had no player play all games and have used a total of 31 players to make up the starting 15. If you included players who came on for the final 20 or so and have so far not made the starting line up then the number would be even higher.

This shows that Jim is using the squad a lot this season. I don't have the stats for last season (that is a task for the off season to get the stats updated into my new database) but I am sure we have used more players than at the equivalent time. This may in part be due to losing more players to international call ups.



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