By Rob Richmond
September 11 2005

On a Saturday afternoon where many could be forgiven for thinking first and foremost on events at the Oval, those with the stomach and fortitude for stronger stuff spent the afternoon down at the always idyllic recreation ground in the heart of beautiful Georgian city of Bath.

 

Why? Well, everyone fancies an upset from time to time.

 

Last week the guardian newspaper described the Saints performance against the Tigers as "like 15 Tommy Coopers". Well this week many Saints supporters could be said to be doing a fine impression of the "grumbleweeds". Mind you in comparison to their Bath counter parts, well the sorts of salvos being fired at the direction of Dodgy Barkley and Wobbly Mallone from behind me were the sort of thing that really makes you wonder what a "REAL" supporter is. Mind you there were plenty at the rec, all of them wearing green black and gold.

 

Its curious thing being a supporter, quite often I liken it to wandering up the stairs in the dark. You always wander on thinking that this is the last step and then step out to find yet another then you step out to find, nothing. You suddenly get a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach followed swiftly by finding the floor and some kind of safety.  Well today the saints certainly found their feet, in more cases than one.

 

Before kick off many saints fans were left wondering if that Carlos fella was any cop as he struggled to get any decent first phase which was anything other than catching practise for Matt Perry, who, bath fans will tell you is the safest hands in the premiership, shame about his passes out of the tackle. (Leave it late, later, later, later still, oh, time for bed kids!) What we discovered is that the King isn’t just a great ball runner but also as good a tactical kicker as the man he's replaced, head coach Paul Grayson.

It was typically shrewd to think that bath would expect us to run from here there and everywhere and by doing so the Bath back three were often times out of position leading to Carlos making them pay with field position.

 

From kick off the Saints put in massive amounts of effort and showed a huge will to win. It is fair to say they put in all of last weeks efforts that were missing and added a few cherries of passion and desire on top to bring out the very worst from Bath, who stuttered and panicked like small children giving a speech in front of the rest of the school. The title of the speech could easily be,

 

'How to alienate your fans by simply showing up and think that you’re going to stroll it"

 

No, where Saints had guts and balls, Bath simply replied with drabness and lazy passes. Only one man in blue stood out for any credit......

 

The Saints lineout struggled desperately to contain the complete and utter evil nemesis that is Steve Borthwick,  an old foe who regularly ensures that the Saints leave the rec with egg, or in most cases an omelette, on their faces. But great credit goes to the saintsmen such as Brett Sturgess, Damo Browne and Mark Soden who put a stop to many of Baths much vaunted rolling mauls not once or twice but all day.

 

Anyway back to the game,

 

Saints were really bossing most areas of the game, we were crisp and arriving in numbers at the breakdown, speedy of foot and thought in open play and though, not winning our set-pieces comfortably were holding our own so as to give Sharky the edge over Martyn Wood, who I suspect may be wearing three of four pairs of shoulder pads, as well as five or six sets of lyrca shorts, he's hefty to say the least and it doesn’t help him around the park.

 

Saints looked to continue their open and fluid start thanks to the deft hands and clever interplay of the two props Tom Smith and Brett Sturgess by bringing the ball into the Bath 22 and pushing it wide to Ben Cohen who was held up 5 metres short by a tackle from the Samoan Juggernaut, Finau, who was suddenly compelled to lie on top of  Ben pull out a book from his undercrackers and start reading war and peace.

Referee Rose decided to nip it in the bud and make an example of Finau, who received a yellow card, which unless I’m very much mistaken he used as a book mark.

 

Bruce took the pen, knocked it over like a pro (shame on you if you ever doubt his kicking skills! It truly was a masterful display all day. From the kick off return the Saints seemed to give away an infringement at their breakdown, the first of many all afternoon. Dodgy Barkley, who has done away with his little 'blow away a little fart' element to his kicking run up, slotted over an easy, if undeserved penalty from just beyond the twenty two.

 

But once again, with spirit unbowed, the saints took the game to Bath with some powerful forward drives from Dan Browne and Foxy leading the ball being spread wide to inflict more pressure on Bath as the first of many big bouts of rainfall fell upon the rec.

 

Strangely, rain being a leveller, it helped the home side with Dan Browne being offside and lingering. David Rose decided to make an example of him too and gave him ten minutes for being in the way.

The Saints made the most of the inclement weather to push the ball wide where Ben Cohen made mincemeat of Matt Perry, who returned to the pitch sporting a rather splendid headband around the bottom of his chin. The saints were awarded a penalty as Andy Beattie picked up the ball from an offside position and Bruce took care of business. 3-6 to the Saints and it was fully deserved.

 

From the kick off Bath put pressure on the Saints line and thanks to a terrific tackle by Sean Lamont on Danny Grewcock the Saints were able to repel several lineouts and Bath eventually settled for a penalty. 6 apiece but the turning point was there for all to see. The saints to a man stood up to Bath and rammed back down their throats. Though Bath didn’t know it, they had already lost.

 

Yet more rain fell and fell and fell and the game became something of a kick duel, with Carlos being the smarter and more intuitive than Malone and recognising that Perry was struggling, pushed him around like Nelson Munz would do to Millhouse. This led to a chase of a kick down underneath the posts where Seamus Mallon and Jon Clarke were all over Perry like white on rice.

 

Somehow Bath survived, kicked it clear and then Bruce brought the ball back down towards the bath line where Bath decided not to roll away from a breakdown and Bruce once again made them pay to make it 6-9 at the halftime.

 

The second half started with the return of Steve Thompson in the green black and gold. The return of the Saints skipper went on to please many supporters who travelled down to the rec and added his bulk to a Saints pack who were feeling the full force of one of British rugby’s premier front rows. Wally brought a lot of solidity to the pack and steadied a ship which was rocking but not tilting.

 

Olly Barkley is a mercurial talent who last week was the subject of much distain on the bath supporter’s site 'Everytime ref, Everytime!' He wasted no time in answering his critics. By being worse than last week. His kicking is not the strongest part of his game and a severe case of the yips and the most laughable penalty attempt from in front of the posts did little to encourage his mood as he moved to full back to replace the dazed and confused Perry.

 

Poor dodgy stepped up to plant one over from in front, lost his footing and kicked the ball forwards a full 10 yards much to the howls of laughter and derision of everyone, absolutely everyone. For those who weren’t there think back to Euro 2004 and David Beckham’s penalty against Portugal. Now multiply that by 100. It’s that funny. After that the poor guy may as well of not been there. I was reliably informed by one of the security guards that he nipped off to Starbucks for a coffee when no one was looking.

 

The power of the Bath pack really is a wonder to behold, but for all of its awesome might comes the simple fact that often times they are a battle cruiser without a captain at the helm. The 'captain' should be Martyn Wood, as mouthy as he is talented but also as indifferent as his waistline.

 

Once again though Bath attempted to power past the Saints mainly using the bludgeon rather than the sabre.  But it’s so increasingly obvious what they will do that even the least progressive and negative teams can stand up to them and stop them, let alone the smallest team, such as ourselves.

 

Bath love big men running at the three quarters so it occurred to me that playing Clarkie at outside center may not be the, well, how can I put it? Best idea defensively speaking. In fact, before the game I wondered if he was planning on wearing two scrum caps. To be fair, if I had Zak Feanauti lining me up for another of his Samoan sidesteps well, I'd most probably pull my rosary from my jock strap (It keeps it nice and warm, wink wink) and adopt the foetal position.

 

But knowing Clarkie's old man and his brother from their past excursions with Bath youth, I felt reasonably confident that he'd stand up to him and begin to impress in his new role. However, when he got the ball in his meat hooks....

 

Both Saints centres were superb today, fast and physical, aggressive and positive, willing chasers and tireless tacklers. I raise my glass to both though the best was yet to come.

 

Saints replaced Dan Browne with Ben Lewitt on the hour mark after a splendid performance from the new number 8 ably assisted by Snowy and Foxy that put the Bath row in the shade, or the puddles as it were.

 

Saints pulled further clear with another penalty from Bruce, who was as calm as a hindu cow all day long. Bath huffed and puffed but couldn’t unlock the saints defence and the fear in the faces of the Bath players was there for all to see, suddenly they were staring down the barrel for the second week in a came where they should be coasting.

 

But panic does strange thing to some people and Wobbly Malone decided to dummy fake in side, twice, to no one then float one right into the hands of Seamus Mallon, who earlier in the day had joked with his team mates that he wouldn’t make it the length of the field and would have to pass any intercept that came his way.

 

Well, he proved himself wrong by doing it the hard way and plopping over in the left hand corner for the opening try of the season for Saints.

 

Despite a late flurry of effort from Bath the game was never in doubt and Saints went on to take the game, the points and the plaudits. The most thoroughly deserved points that the Saints are most likely to win all season and they sent many saints fans hope much the happier.

 

A special note to the fans and supporters who came down this afternoon, well done. I'm truly proud of all of you, you sung Bath to death, stood and sat in their most deplorable conditions and seemed to enjoy every bit of it. You are most certainly a bunch of A.R.S.S.