By Stockers
November 29 2004

After the most turbulent week in the recent history of Northampton Saints, the team and its travelling support made the long journey northwards to see if the new brooms and new dressing room spirit would breathe new life into Saints disastrous Premiership campaign. Given results elsewhere over the weekend for Worcester and Quins, only a good victory would be enough to stop Saints from ending up at the bottom of the league table.

With a cold northerly wind blowing and heavy showers hurrying through Tyneside during Sunday morning, conditions threatened to be difficult but Falcons have obviously invested in pitch drainage and the rain stayed away for the game itself.

Saints warmed up on a rear pitch under the watchful eye of Budge Pountney with Larks and Tim Exeter running the session. Bruce Reihana and Shane Drahm had earlier been on the main pitch practising goal kicks so with Grayse seemingly absent, later confirmed by the PA announcer (under a sustained attempt by Bernie to put him off) late changes to the team sheet were required. In addition John Rudd came onto the bench in place of Ben Cohen who ended up as waterboy due to some misunderstanding with the England team management about “who can play when after what amount of sitting on a bench at Twickers type of mess up” The Welsh seemed to have no such inhibitions about Colin Charvis playing for his club after Wales’s stroll in the park against Japan.

So to the game itself. Not a classic by any means and another game that Saints should and could have won under different circumstances. The difference was the penalty count which was not slight and which ended up costing Saints the match.

Most of the misdemeanours were for technical infringements at the breakdown or for off side in defence and with goal kickers of the standard of Matt Burke and Dave Walder in the Falcons team, such errors cost Saints dear.

Falcons played a limited tactical game which depended, in the first half anyway, on long range touch kicking and taking the points offered to them when Saints infringed. They never threatened the Saints try line. Saints on the other hand, were starting to play more of the rugby and their efforts were rewarded in the 13th minute with a sparkling try from John Clarke on the left wing.

Saints had chipped ahead, following a break by Drahm and Falcon’s full back Burke had failed to cleanly catch the ball. (Perhaps his hands were cold, bless him) Marc Stcherbina following up at speed slid in goalie style and snaffled the ball but Falcons regained possession in the corner and cleared to touch.

However, Wylie took a quick throw to Bruce in midfield and he drew his tackler to feed the ball wide to JC on the left wing. The try was no certainty, however, as Clarkey had some space but a fair distance to cover to beat the scrambling Falcon’s defence. He turned on the gas, blasted through two tackles and dotted down for the try. Magic! Quick thinking and pressure on the opposition ball had ended up in seven points to Saints with Shane slotting the conversion.

Stitch was later very unlucky not to be awarded a try after he slid over the try line with a Falcons tackler in attendance but the score was disallowed as the referee decided he was held up over the line. The question is, had the ball been grounded on the try line as he slid over? Bruce certainly seemed to think so but the referee had already made his decision.

Unfortunately, the scoreboard showed that Saints only had a slender 12-13 lead at half time despite their attacking efforts, as they were being regularly penalised, keeping the home side in the match.

Saints turned round playing into the breeze and a half of rugby that they would probably rather forget. Highlights were some impressive rolling mauls with one going so far upfield and at such speed that the props were having to stop for oxygen at regular intervals. Sadly, Saints coughed up possession and the effort was all to no avail.

John Rudd threw a pass at Bruce’s hair extensions which even The Great Reihana failed to catch cleanly. Knock on, scrum to Falcons 30 metres out, back to Dave Walder, drop goal through the posts.

Despite further attacks on the Falcon’s line one of which nearly saw Andy Blowers go over for a try, Saints were turning over too much ball in crucial positions. Attacks often petered out when the line ran out of space or numbers.

As darkness gathered towards the end of the second half, Human was sinbinned for a trip on Burke as he tried to counter down the wing and Wylie missed the clean tackle. Although Saints would surely struggle when down to 14 men, the scoreboard only ticked over once for Falcons with another three points. Sadly, the Falcons had managed to keep the scoreboard ticking over successfully all afternoon with kicks at goal and the final score, without Newcastle ever really threatening the Saints try line was 27-16.

So it was more of the same for Saints with an annoying inability to finish attacks off with points, a penalty count that Budge will be furious about and a descent into the mire in terms of league position. On the plus side, AB (my man of the match), Bruce, Snowy Soden, Stitch, and Drahmy performed well, the team as a whole showed they can attack and can certainly defend and hopefully some confidence will have been recovered. In the loose the Saints pack had the upper hand but were distinctly second best in the set scrum.

We are now into a 3-week break from the ZP when we venture into the Heineken and Powergen Cup rounds but there is still much work for the new coaches to do.

Plus ca change? The full saying is Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

In English: The more things change, the more they stay the same.