By Chris in the Archive
September 10 2003

In a look back in the archive its a return to the opening game of the campaign last year at a dark and gloomy Heywood Road where Charlie Hodgson pipped the Saints with virtually the last kick of the game. Revenge though came on the last day of the regular season when Saints pipped Sale to third. Hodgson out of the shadows to break Saints heart


Action from Friday
By Chris G

The Saints went out to a late late drop goal by Charlie Hodgson as they narrowly lost their opening Zurich Premiership game of the season to Sale at a very gloomy Heywood Road on Friday evening. However all was not darkness (despite the floodlights) as Saints put on a stirring display.


In true 'hats on wheels' style the Saints came out of the blocks like demons and drove deep into Sharks territory from the off. With the game only just a minute old a finely weighted crossfield kick by Paul Grayson was gratefully latched on to by Ben Cohen who barged over for the score with just 75 seconds on the clock.

The try left those ignorant Sale 'supporters' who described our backs as 'carthorses' chomping into their own nosebags as the home support were stunned into silence. That Ben left one of the Sale 'thoroughbreds' Mark Cueto for dead only added to the joy.

Larry added the conversion for a very early 7-0 lead but no sooner had the crowd gathered their breath than a Jos Baxendall drop goal and a pair of penalties (given by the very whistle happy Steve Leyshon) edged the home side in front at 9-7.

Indeed so much was the tune on Mr Leyshons whistle played against the Saints it was somewhat of a surprise that the first time (of many) that he decided to brandish one of his yellow cards it was to a Sale player as Stuart Pinkerton was asked to spend ten minutes considering his actions.

To Sales credit however they took the game to the Saints and but for some stout defensive action Sale could have moved into a commanding lead. Kicking the ball straight, to a very luckily quiet, Jason Robinson did not help matters.

However simple mistakes and handling errors kept Sales penalty count going as Hodgson and Grayson exchanged a brace of further kicks before the end of the period with the teams going in at 15-13 in the Sharks advantage.

The second half promised much but it was a disjointed if not thoroughly entertaining half.
In between the triple cardings of Budgen, Morris and Harris by Mr Leyshon the teams actually managed to play some rugby.

An early Grayson penalty edged the Saints back into a lead again before the enigmatic Hodgson replied with two more to open up a five point gap going into the last minute.

The Saints at last rallied but were kept out by hook and more often than not by crook as the clock ran down. Step up Oriol Ripol.

Finally after the pack had pounded the Sale line and even after Ben Cohen had been held up over for the score Matt Dawson still found time to recylce the ball through the backs to the impressive debutant Oriol Ripol who squeezed into score in the corner.

With time seemingly up Larry had the conversion to win the game, or so it seemed. His kick went wide but suprisingly more time was added and instead of clearing their lines from the restart the Saints were driven back allowing young Hodgson who in all truth never put a foot wrong to drop the unexpected winner from 30 metres.

Of course initial disappointment but in the cold light of a day a lot for the Saints to take from this game. Sale have probably the most vaunted back division in the league but the Saints defence held firm while at the other end our lads took two well crafted scores. The lineout has improved out of all recognition from last seasons hit and miss affair with new signing Steve Williams to the fore.

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And what the supporters thought.

Chris Hoddle
We were much improved on last season when we were drubbed. Still a few silly errors, giving away penalties that should have been avoided. Lineouts much better, can't really remember one that we lost. Did they mention on the radio the very strong wind that will have had an effect on the final score? Our defence looked strong; Ben and Raspberry looked sharp on the wing, but never really looked like breaking through the middle. Daws was there but didn't do anything major, except knock on in attacking positions. Overall, much more promise, if the game was at FG with our 10000 crowd we would have won by 10. Afraid I couldn't see what happened in the far corners, it was too dark, a good job we played in the gold so I could see something.

David Taverner
It was a good curtain raiser and although we lost we can take the good things and look forward to next weekend at FG and get a win there to get back on the way with points

Mark H
Overall, I'm strangely not as gutted as I should be. More wins than losses will come from performances like that. My MOTM - difficult. One of AB, PJ or Raspberry. I forgot to mention, even though he should never have had the chance, it was a truly great drop goal by Hodgson.

Gr8 White
Thought your line out was very good. You'd done your homework well and went to the tail all night. I think we jumped against you there once.

Chris
We blew it by the sounds of it! 21-21 and we gave the ball to them to set up a dropgoal in the 85th minute.
Plus points though. We didn't concede a try, we scored two, and we got a point and raspberry sounds like an absolute star.

Tetley Chris
Have to agree Chris but we conceded too many penalties. Mind you, ref sounded mighty suspect, not sure who was running the game, the ref or the home crowd!!

HD
Mr. Dawson was running the game, not the ref, or the home crowd. He runs virtually every game he plays in. You are correct in what you say though the ref was suspect. So too were his touch judges (bottle merchants the lot of them). Second "try" wasn't. The flag hit the ground about three minutes before the ball did.

Pit Prop
Saints illegal tactics got exactly what they deserved - a loss.
As for Dawson - seemed to me to be getting his retaliation in first - sly little digs provoking an active reaction, the reaction catching (eventually) the "officials'" eye.
Your lineout worked well, particularly as Leyshon wasn't the least bit bothered about direction.
Defence was good, particularly as illegal tactics gave it time to realign.
As for Friday night rugby, our opening gate last season was around 2000 - last night's was 5,300. The suits don't care about who is in the crowd - only numbers - therefore last night was a success, its wait and see for the rest of the season. But Premiership rugby in the Northwest depends upon those kinds of numbers through the gate (until Orrell get promoted) - any way we can get them has to be the right way. Its not away-fan-friendly, and in a lot of cases it hasn't been home fan friendly either.

West Midlands Saint
1. The most appalling seat I've ever had. Couldn't see much of the pitch and that which I could was in near darkness.

2. Charlie Hodgson is awesome. He has so much time to make decisions. I would seriously pick him ahead of JW.

3. The local were very friendly and there was some decent banter.

4. Steve Williams could be the best buy. The line out worked really well and we even stole some of theirs. Simon H also gave great tail ball when he came on.

5. Danny Richmond came on as blood replacement and immediately took one against the head from the England A Hooker.

6. Their backs were the CARTHORSES and it was pure joy to see Raspberry absolutely skin Hanley (who proceeded to throw his toys from the pram - lovely). In all honesty their backs never looked like scoring - the only time they looked threatening was from broken play after we kicked away bad ball.

7. In all honesty, if our handling had been better we would have murdered them. What is it with those ridiculous gloves?

8. Daws must be protected - they tried to decapitate him on several occasions.

9. With stronger refereeing we would have won. We were given a penalty, resulting in three points at the end of the first half when a penalty try should have been awarded. In one move ending a metre short there was a high tackle - advantage played, two offsides (both spotted by Mr Leyshon) - advantage played and then a blatant dive over the top to kill the ball under the posts. Weak referees will be the ruination of pro rugby. He was, I hasten to add, equally bad for both sides.

10. Robbie Morris carded for? Chris Budgen - fair enough - handling on the ground. Budge is a marked man - Leyshon had pre-conceived ideas and at the first break down pulled Budge out. There was some seriously dangerous rucking, the ball was already out on our side, right under the ref's nose for which he took no action. Hey Ho - same old problems.

11. Andrew Blowers must have spent the entire summer in the gym and now has thighs to rival Air Ben's (great try BTW)

12. We missed JL to hold it up in midfield.

Mark H
If every game this season is going to be that exciting though then we're in for a good season.

Cheesey
Too tired from the journey home to say much. The referee maddened me; I see I'm not alone. Budgen handled on the ground, but we had already got the ball on our side of the ruck. Morris incident was even a penalty. Weak refereeing. How many injuries were there in the second half?

Wishful
On last night's showing you should be optimistic - two good sides, with your backs unrecognisable from what we saw at Heywood Road last year.
Ironically I felt we coped better than expected upfront - although your lineout was much better than I expected.
See you at the Gardens for the return.

St. Marlowe
What a difference in a side! Good start let's hope the running game is beefed up with less silly mistakes, and then the skies the limit.

Chris
Despite the disappointment of last night I’m starting to feel very optimistic about this season having read the reports and heard all your opinions this morning roll on Saturday!

Samwigg
Positives
1) Lineouts - much more organised. Williams has seemed to get the calls right. We knew that if we threw to 2 and 4 we'd probably lose ball (as shown on the one we lost) so we kept throwing to back

2) our carthorse backs scoring. Seem to have confidence in our back play. One highlight was Ripol doing his stopping then starting acceleration meant that he skinned Hanley.

3) Defence was awesome. Ok we gave away some penalties but if you look at those up the road then you'll see that their penalty count is high but the tries conceded is not. It's cynical but so what. Scrambling defence showed that we won't let anyone score easily passed us. Demonstrated great team spirit.

4) Tackling - judo throwing and Jorgy's big hits. Blowers hit on Hodgson wasn't a penalty it was one of those unable to pull out of the tackle hits.

5) Turnovers - Budge and the rest of the forwards seemed to get to the breakdown quickly and as a result we turned over quite a lot of the ball. Ref gave us one or two penalties for them holding on to the ball but we maybe should have had more.

6) Strike against the head - first one of the season goes to Danny Richmond

Negatives
1) Backrow making ground - hopefully Connors can make more yardage, Snowy played well but doesn't have the power (yet) to make good yardage from back of scrum

2) Referees - same old, same old. Inconsistencies, sin-binnings and gutless touch judges who can't see their backside from their elbow. How Harris didn't get a red card for trying to decapitate Daws was a mystery, and their second row for punching !!!! Also Thompson received a flurry of punches from their Hooker but it went unpunished !! No doubt we'll have a ref next week who'll give us more decisions at rucks as Sale kept diving over the top, he kept penalising us for killing the ball but from where I was standing we looked on our feet.

3) Conceding penalties in kickable positions - does vary according to refs but this needs to be cut out to give us a chance

4) Unsportsmanlike crowds - cheers for the booing when Grays attempted to kick for goal - much appreciated and I would love to repeat the feat when 12,000 of us do it for Hodgson (not)

Laurie K
There is so much to talk about. On the positive side Saints looked like they knew what they were doing and outscoring Sale by two tries to nil says a lot. Great performances from Daws (my man of the match) Williams, Oriol (he's too good to be a raspberry) & Tom. I never thought we would win because of poor ball retention but a draw would have been fair. Enjoyed the Sale crowd. We met a family at Tatton Park (nearby) in the afternoon and they showed interest in our shirts. After a chat they seemed interested in going. Low and behold there they were so that's four more Sale supporters of Friday rugby.


Grumpy
I thought you look a far more ambitious side with ball in hand, very organised in defence and the pick of your bunch were Dawson, Williams and the hugely impressive Blowers. Enjoyed the banter with the knowledgeable and affable Saints fans. I bet you can’t wait for Reihana to give you some real guile in midfield...

John Rickerd
Some good things from the Saints, it's a pity they didn’t catch the restart but it was a great drop goal to clinch a victory. I think we can look forward with confidence as thing will only improve.

Dave Jackson
First of all its worth saying that I enjoyed the game. Maybe its the 3 month break without any games but it was nice to watch a good old fashioned hard fought (literally in some cases) game. When Ben touched down within 2 mins and Grayson banged over the touchline conversion it looked as if we could be having a very good season. 80 mins of play later and Ripol touches down in the corner to tie the score, Grayson fluffs the conversion but to be honest 21 - 21 draw would have been a fair result. Anyway to finish with two positives , it was a lot better performance than the opening match of last season and we are above Leicester in the table.

Moanjam
1.the speed at which Saints were recycling and their general speed of play on Friday was nothing short of outstanding. Literally twice as fast as the Stade game. I have never seen a start to a game like that.
2. Of the last 6 tries scored by Saints in 2 games, 5, yes 5 were scored by our wings. That's WINGS!!. And we didn’t concede any against one of the most running attacks in the country.


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