By Saint Tim
January 27 2011

This is one of the two season defining games when you are a Saints fan.  Who does not claim to have been there when Nick Beale launched his drop goal from behind the try line as Saints steam rollered Tigers to another famous victory?  I am sure it is almost as many as those of Neath who saw them beat the All Blacks! Ok so I jest a little but this is a key game that we all look forward to as a marker of our progress.

Who was your MoTM as Saints were well beaten at Welford Road?

Saints had won the home game so could we do the double?  Well it all started so well as Saints took it to Tigers and before many would have settled down Ben Foden had gone over in the corner and Myler duly converted for an astounding 7 – 0 lead after 2 minutes!  Now they do say that a wounded Tiger is a most dangerous animal and on this basis I have to concur.  Tigers started hauling themselves back first with a penalty and then with Newby burrowing through the bodies and the mud to score a typical Tigers long range try.  Even so it was still close at the turn around after a Myler pen it was 10 – 11.

The second half was just as ferocious as the first as Flood and Myler traded a couple of penalties each to leave it a single point game with less than twenty minutes to go.  Unfortunately at this point it all went wrong for Saints.  First Tigers got their second try and then a couple of minutes later Mark Sorenson (only just on the pitch) was yellow carded for a team offence.  From then on it was all Tigers and despite some desperate defence Saints could not hold out legally and Tigers drew far enough ahead to deny the losing bonus point on penalties.

So a great game to watch for the neutral, for the Saints fans it was however a little disappointing.  A second loss on the trot plus some big injuries to boot!  We lost Courtney and Flash quite early and never really seemed to recover.  We had however stood toe to toe at test match intensity level (according to Flood) for most of the game and I am sure we will be back stronger and have better days against our friends from up the road.

So, who caught the eye?

 There were two people who have shown up in the vote.  In second place with almost 32 percent of the votes was Dylan Hartley.  Now I am a big fan of Dylan but I have seen him play a lot better.  It was noticeable that the line out did not function for the Saints and the spot light, rightly or wrongly, for that always falls on the hooker.  The brave pundits from the commentary box never look to the fact that the line out leader Courtney was lost early on or the Tigers tactics that allowed them to disrupt.  Dylan looked a little forlorn at some of the line outs.  Now I know that one of our forward experts did a piece on what happened and I am sure the key was that Sir did not police the gap.  So this is really a long winded way of saying I think a few of our chums from the large roundabout might have voted this way.

In first place was Ben Foden who got over 36% of the votes.  Ben not only got the first try but he looked dangerous every time he got the ball.  Ben has been criticised for not joining the line enough and not providing sufficient threat.  Well it was great to see him recover the form and I hope it continues into the six nations.

Thanks to all 88 who voted including our chums.

Full Result

Previous Winners

Vote History

Who wins?

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Players Used

So far this season we have still used 31 different players.  I am getting worried about how many games some of the top players have started.  I am not sure we can keep this up.