By Carl Furness
October 13 2003

A crowd of 10,384 saw a disappointing result for the Saints this week after an interesting but tense game at Franklins Gardens ending in a 30-24 win for the Irish. It all looked good in the beginning with a break from Shane Drahm nearly putting young Clarke in at the corner after just a minute. Then from a poor clearance by Irish Saints got a lineout, which they won and drove forward finally getting the ball out to Drahm were he sprinted over the line for the first try of the game after just 4 minutes. He converted his own try and Saints were 7-0 up and the crowd seemed to feel a big win was in the making, how wrong we would be.

After the restart Saints gave a penalty away and Mapletoft make it 7-3. Then a good break going around Bruce and then chipping over Beal resulted in a well made try for Paul Sackey, Mapletoft duly converted and Saints were 10-7 down after 9 minutes.

A poor lineout in our own 22 was turned over and Irish made at look easy as the ball went wide and Bishop went over for Irish’s second try of the game, Mapletoft converted again and it was 17-7 with 14 minutes on the clock.

Saints tried their best going forward but just couldn’t break the Irish defence as again they cleaned the ball out of danger.

Then come the big talking point of the game with a strange tap penalty try by Mapletoft. With the penalty being straight in front of the posts and on the 22 line, all the Saintsmen retreated to the try line expecting a kick at goal. At no point did Mapletoft or the ref signal for this and the Saintsmen should have paid attention until he did so. I can’t see this happening again as hopefully they have learnt by their mistakes.

Saints power on and after 25 minutes Sharkey collected the ball from the back of a ruck on the halfway line and ran in to score his first try for the Saints, lets hope it’s the first of many.

Shane missed the conversion badly but slotted a penalty not long after to make the score 24-15 to Irish with less then half an hour on the clock.

To the annoyance of the crowd the referee Dave Pearson missed lots of offside penalties and when Robbie decide to take the law into his own hand Pearson sent him to the bin with just 2 minutes left in the half. Robbie though must control himself, as this is the second yellow card in as many weeks and will be having a suspension soon if he is not careful.

The ref blew for the end of the first half but one of the touch judges saw a penalty for the Saints, which Shane slotted over to finish the half at 24-18.

The beginning of second half saw Saints try their best but the defence of Irish’s was too good and Saints come away with nothing.
Robbie returned on 48 minutes with the French prop coming off and Soden returning who had been swapped for Budgen after the sin binning.

The crowd were getting restless and ref Pearson wasn’t helping much. A penalty on 50 minutes for Irish made the score 27-18 and Saints decided to bring on Seely for his 200th appearance for the Saints, replacing Mark Soden.

More offsides missed by the ref were really getting on the crowds nerves but eventually Saints won the penalty and Shane scored again to make it 27-21.

A good powerful display by the Saints pack saw another penalty for the Saints and Pearson should have sin binned an Irish player but chickened out. Shane however slotted over the kick and Saints were within 3 points again.
Ripol come on for Hyndman with 10 minutes to go but Saints still couldn’t break the Irish defence. Irish were given a penalty much to Rob Hunters discus and the ref gave Irish a further 10 metres for the chat back. Everett slotted it over and the score was 30-24.

Saints never gave up and won a lineout in the corner with just 2 minutes left but with lots of attempts to go over the line, Bruce knocked it on and the chance was lost.

The Ref finally sin binned Dawson but with just seconds on the clock it seemed pointless. Lets hope next weeks referee isn’t as bad as Mr. Pearson.

Wayne was please with the performance but not the result and said, “ We were punished for our errors.” and“ We masterminded our own downfall.”

All we can do now is to look forward to next week’s game against Newcastle and hope the result is more in our favour.