Season Relections - Mark 'Custard' Hazell - Part 2

By Mark H
June 17 2003

What can be said about Saturday 30th November 2002 that hasn’t already been said. Lousy weather? I didn’t feel it raining. Poor Leicester team? No, they got battered by a better team that didn’t give them the options they usually had at home. Great Saints performance?

Possibly the greatest in recent years.

Fair-minded Leicester fans? In the main, yes (led by Stopsy, who looked absolutely gutted but still congratulated everyone). Decent Sky coverage? Any coverage of a Saints win at Wellbeaten Road is good coverage, but even they seemed stunned at the win (and grateful that they were there to see it). The facts - Grayson penalty, Stimpson penalty, Grayson penalty, bedlam. A hurried clearance by LTA led to a lineout near the Tigers line. As Budge peeled from back to front, Wally threw short, Budge collected, and dived over unopposed for the try. The ultimate gypsy try.

Grayson conversion, half time 13-3 Saints. Stimpson penalty, penalty, penalty. Rob Hunter sin-binned, and returned. Ecstasy. Another lineout in front of the Tigers bench (oh how sweet), another short throw to Budge at the front, but this time he was caught. From the ruck, Ian Vass went blind and ran in for the try from 35 metres. Grays converted the try from the touchline. Dreamland. At 12-20, don’t ask me why, I knew we’d won it. Five minutes after the conversion, different class. From a ruck virtually on the Tigers line, Chris Hyndman ran the width of the pitch, Vassy found him, and the Handyman went through Stimpson’s ineffectual tackle to make it 12-25, and surely we all believed that this was it now. (Didn’t we?) The last few minutes were played in the same way as the previous seventy; Tigers hitting a golden wall and becoming increasingly desperate (they must have been, LTA was seeing more of the ball than ever!), and for one brief moment, it looked like a fourth try, and a bonus point, was coming our way. Still, 12-25 it remained, and all our Christmases had indeed come at once, as most retreated to the bar, and the hardy few got wet (like I say, was it raining?) waiting for the team to come out and making sure to mock Stuart Barnes for his midweek wine comments. As if a perfect day couldn’t get any better, I then retreated to an eaterie in Leicester with the COYSDC Curry Club L Division (Leicester, Leighton Buzzard, Lumbertubs), and proceeded to flash the GBG at every opportunity. Best of all, they just couldn’t look us in the eyes.

Back to the Heineken Cup and the visit of Cardiff. Or should it be the once-mighty Cardiff? They certainly were a pale shadow on the greats of the past, and even the team that visited the Gardens last season would have wiped the floor with them. They had lost their first two matches, so a third defeat would effectively knock them out, and despite the assistance of a poor, pedantic performance from Scottish referee Ian Ramage, and the entertainment from the oldest touch judge ever, Saints won 25-11, and went back to sharing the group lead with Biarritz.

What made that day remarkable though was what happened in the hours leading up to kick off. COYSDC has its unfortunate history of heart trouble, so the first annual sponsored walk was organised (too many people to mention here, but well done to Rich for sticking with the organisation of it, and Jetsco for the T-shirts), walking from the back pitches at the Gardens to the Cromwell Cottage at Kislingbury and back again. The club kindly agreed to send a couple of players out to see us off, so imagine our delight (and Lom’s in particular) when the two players were Mattie Stewart and Peter Jorgensen. A good time was had by all, and in the end over £3,300 was raised for the British Heart Foundation. My personal highlight of the walk was being in the Tetley Village afterwards trying to get some food, and someone I had never met before coming up to me and thrusting a twenty pound note into my hand, just because I still had the T-shirt on.

If you didn’t get involved last time, the second annual walk is this autumn, and it will be publicised, so don’t be afraid, it can’t be as muddy as last time!

The second half of the Cardiff double-header was the following Sunday, and a bit of a novelty. The club had laid a chartered train on, so 600 or so of us piled into Northampton station before nine in the morning, and joined Uncle Keith for the trip into Welsh Wales. It was also a novelty as I was going down there with someone different, rather than the usual C Block crowd. Sall, who on the spur of the moment had decided to go to Cardiff the previous Saturday, had contacted me in midweek to see if I wanted to travel down as part of a group. As it turned out, the other members of the group were travelling with families, so it was just me and Sall, and after a few phone calls on the Friday afternoon, I got my seat changed so we would travel together. On the train, who should be sat next to us but the physio from Twickenham, who went by the name of Clare (stick with it, it is worth it in the end!). Suffice to say that journeys down and back were absolutely hilarious, and with the train getting in only ten minutes late, we had a chance to walk round the outside of the Millennium Stadium before the start as well.

As for the game - well, with Saints on a roll, and Cardiff, if it’s possible, worse than the previous week, it was not a great surprise (but it was a source of great delight) that Saints were 24-0 up after the first quarter of the game with the two points already in the bag. It really was a case of how many, but with the by now obligatory sin-binning of Rob Hunter throwing Saints off their stride, and the realism that Cardiff were not going to come back, there was only a Chris Budgen try to add to those by Wee Tam, AB and Ben, Ben’s try later being voted the Saints try of the season at the awards dinner. Of most satisfaction was the fact that Cardiff were nilled, further proof that the defensive work going on was paying immense dividends. A brilliant, brilliant day, summed up most by the chant of “are you Bedford in disguise?”

Another week, another cup, this time old friends Orrell at Edge Hall Road in the Powergen, with everyone on the supporters club coaches hoping that this was to be our year. Uncle Keith had made the grand gesture of buying all of the Saints fans a pint at The Station pub before the game - when he turned up and five to eleven and saw coach loads waiting outside, his wallet must have skipped a beat. It was a great gesture by a great man, thoroughly appreciated not just by the Saints fans in there (and we filled the pub), but also by the one or two Orrell fans who made their way in. By the time 1.30 came (an early kick off due to no floodlights being available), there was much merriness, and it’s a good job there was, for what was to follow was what I consider to be the best game of rugby featuring the Saints all season. With nine players being rested with an eye of the Gloucester game the following week, the last thing we needed was for Ben (who was only on the bench) to injure himself in the warm-up. It was only 13-12 to Saints at half time, but surely the gap would widen in the second half. It did, to 26-13 after 50 minutes, but as Orrell’s backs were up, led by flanker Nick Easter and ex-rugby league man Gary Connolly, the rugby got more and more desperate in a “we need to put them away” way - and we needed to do it without AB, who had been lost to an injury that would eventually keep him out for weeks. Amazingly the two tries that made it 27-26 to Orrell became 29-27 to Saints, which was then made 34-29 to Orrell after a 40 metre rolling maul was turned into a try. The eighty minutes passed, and there was still a deficit. In the 83rd minute, Jorgy went over in the corner (or did he? Some Orrell fans in that corner were convinced afterwards that he didn’t make it) to level the game up and Grays had a kick to win the match. Fittingly, it missed, for such was the entertainment value and the effort put in by Orrell that it would have been cruel for it to be snatched away like that.

First half extra time. If it could go wrong, it did. With only ten minutes each way, it would surely be the first mistake that lost it, so when Orrell went over for their sixth try (no-one else came close to that this season), and it was converted, the comeback looked difficult. When a penalty was kicked with the last kick of the 10 minutes, 44-34 looked one mountain too many. I’ll admit I thought it was all over, and thought of the score being announced at Welford Road and the mirth they would have with it.

Second half extra time. Very dark. Lesson learned. Never doubt Saints. Five minutes to go, and the margin was reduced when Ian Vass went over under the posts and Grays drop-kicked the conversion. Still three points short though. Two minutes to go, and the magic man Jorgy went over for his hat-trick. The tricky conversion was watched, I’ll admit, with hands in front of my face…yes! 48-44, and surely we could hold a lead for two minutes? It got better, Vassy went over again and Grays converted to give the score a surreal 55-44 look. At the final whistle, I just apologised to the Orrell fans around me and said that the better team lost. I’ll make do with a win in a 14 try match any day though, but a performance like that and Gloucester would rip us apart…

Boxing Day brought the Under 21 match against Tigers, and once again Saints did not come out on top, losing 15-12 after being 12-0 up. More worryingly, Chris Hyndman, one of the stars of recent weeks, went off early in the second half with what looked like a bad knock. Perhaps our luck had all been used up at Orrell.

An interesting point from that game was that the pitch was very, very wet, so the wisdom of playing on it two days before coming up against the best forward unit in the Premiership could be questioned - especially when your best player of the season to date was missing. Indeed, any team missing the likes of Connors, Blowers, Dawson and Cohen, as Saints were and would be for the London Irish game that followed, would struggle. No-one expected a rolling maul to go thirty metres from a Gloucester lineout as early as two minutes in to set up Olivier Azam for a try. Fine start in front of a capacity crowd and the Sky cameras! It was a strange game, in my mind the most intense of the season to date, with “curious” decision making throughout. No question about the big decision of the game though. Tom Smith and Phil Vickery, Lions props both, decided to see who was hardest and the Cornishman came off worse, having to be helped off the pitch with what appeared to be a clear concussion. 13 minutes later, after Saints had managed to blow a 5 on 1 overlap, he reappeared with a piece of tape around his head, still clearly groggy. The post-match explanation - it was a cut ear. Strangely enough, there was no sign of it in his Sky interview. Duped? Conned? Irresponsible? It was possibly the most telling indication of how big a match it was for Glaws.

Frustratingly, it could have been Saints game as well. With Mercier not kicking as well as usual (must be something about FG), the stage was set for Grays to kick us to victory. Unfortunately it was not the case, and two relatively straightforward kicks (for someone of his quality) were missed, and the game slipped away 16-13. Glaws celebrated as if they’d won the league - that opportunity would have to wait.

London Irish were the first visitors of 2003, and managed to catch Saints having a collective mare. The final scoreline of 22-10 was not a fair reflection of the difference between the two sides, especially as Irish were relatively poor, but once again Brendan Venter had spotted the weaknesses in the Saints game and made sure that his side took full advantage. After the major disappointment of the cup final, it was possibly not surprising to see people leaving early. What made it worse was that Sky made it a focal point on the following week’s Rugby Club, making the whole support look fickle. And people wonder why we’re not great Stuart Barnes fans…

The Thursday night Chron proclaimed “Famous Five Set To Return”. Not sure how Timmy the dog would have helped us against Irish (apart from biting Venter that is), but indeed, the injured quintet of Connors, Blowers, Stewart, Dawson and Cohen were all fit for the crucial Heineken Cup game against Biarritz. The maths at this point were easy - if Biarritz won we were out, if we won we were in prime position depending on the margin of victory. The small Biarritz following must have been surprised to see riot police in the centre of Northampton, but fears of major incidents were allayed when the Cobblers’ lunchtime game at home to Cardiff was called off due to a frozen pitch.

Now the remainder of this bit of the Biarritz reflections are for Sall, who can’t remember anything about the game due to being ill - I blame the bloke who was supposed to be looking after her at the game…Biarritz went ahead with two early penalties before Wally went over in the corner, Grays converting. Five minutes before half-time, fine work by Bernat-Salles put Bousses clear for an unconverted try, and then Yachvili extended the lead to 14-6. Grays then misses a series of penalties, and signals to Daws to take over. Within a minute, he kicks one over via the post. With time desperately running out, Saints camped on the BO line, tension at levels I haven’t known since the Wasps quarter-final in 2000, and volume at a level unheard so far during the season, Daws reverses a pass to Jorgy, who makes the line - just - with a desperate arm stretch. 15-14. Now the conversion is vital, to equal the winning margin in the South of France. Daws kicks it - via the same spot on the same post. JP gets binned for unnecessary foot movement. BO drive into the Saints 22, and Deso carrie sthe ball over the line for a scrum five. Rather than driving the seven man pack over, or setting up a drop goal, they go for a pick and go from the base, and Ben bundles the man and ball into touch a foot short. The lineout is won, and the ball blasted into touch, and a famous victory is gained. You go into Heroes, lean against a table, a jobsworth refuses you a cup of tea, you go very, very pale, and then throw up into a Saints carrier bag. With the win putting Saints in the driving seat, the only people sicker than you are French…

Luton Airport, 6am, Friday 17th January, and all you can see are Saints shirts…Armed with our cheap EasyJet flights, the pilgrimage to Belfast begins. After a minor mix-up regarding rooms, the gang of four (me, Connect, Saintsby and Brownie), head into the city centre to test some of the local hostelries - and very pleasant they were indeed. Just as we were about to head for the ground, it decided to rain - hard - and I looked forward to getting wet on the open terrace (total Saints fans seen there - 1). Thankfully the rain stopped, and we could look forward to the multiple permutations that meant the Saints would or wouldn’t qualify. At the end of the evening, the maths didn’t matter, but the boot of David Humphreys did, once again snatching a victory away from saintly hands right at the end. The draw would have meant a group win - in the end, so did a three point defeat. The undoubted highlight was Ben’s try, turning the full back inside out and strolling over. Especially as it was right in front of me, and I was going mad whilst surrounded by displeased Ulstermen. Oh well.

How to convert Ulstermen into Munstermen. In the pub on Saturday afternoon, such was the shock at seeing all these Saints fans supporting the Irish team over Gloucester, that by the time Ronan O’Gara kicked the conversion that knocked Glaws out, everyone was behind them…

I’ve said this once already, but another week, another cup, and a Powergen quarter-final at Barf. 18 free coaches laid on by the club, a ten o’clock start, and Howlin on the coach! What more could you ask for? Well, the RFU had given us Lander to ref it, so it wasn’t all ideal. 16-3 down after about ten minutes wasn’t either. Two tries from Ben soon turned that round, and the game then ebbed and flowed back and forth until Barf took what looked an unassailable 29-23 lead late on. Ten minutes of pressure on the Barf line and no joy, including one incredible moment when Wally made the clearest knock on of the century, and Lander missed it. After numerous false starts, two disallowed tries and various screams at Lander, up stepped the favourite sons - Daw with a reverse pass to Jorgen (ok, I know it’s sen but give me some poetic licence!), and the white line fever was back. Grays kicked the conversion and there was a fragile one point lead. You could just see Mike Catt, the outstanding player on the field, dropping a goal to take a win away from us again, but the one attempt he managed screwed wide, and there was a semi-final to look forward to.

Unbeknown to me, the ticket details for the semi had already been sent out, and so began the scramble for two of the 5,000 tickets available to season ticket holders only. A prized voucher eventually came, courtesy of this site, and two tickets were purchased. It was to be London Irish at Oxford, on Sunday 2nd March. Please let this one be our turn…

Before that were two of the London exiles. A first (rugby) trip to Wycombe brought evil smelling burgers and a 16-9 defeat at the hands of Wasps, highlight being Kenny Kickit baiting before the game as he missed every warm up kick. Then came an excellent game at a sold out FG against Sarries, with a 34-25 victory, although marred by an horrific injury to Sarries’ Kevin Sorrell. Thankfully, despite fracturing his skull, he was playing again by the end of the season.

As a warm up to the Super 12, the Golden Cats were in town to play an international-free Saints. Now can anyone honestly say that they were expecting a Saints win? And can anyone say that they were expecting one after being 8-0 down? Well, we got one, and a five-try one at that, including a spectacular try from Oriol, and a pair from Chris Budgen - and all five tries came in a twelve minute period either side of half time. Wow! Very, very entertaining…

With a break for the first two Six Nations games, we were left to watch Robbie Morris get his first cap in the win at the Millennium Stadium. So who should I meet up with at the Kassam on the following Sunday but two very proud parents, hoping as we all were, for a better result than at Twickers last season.

The Kassam. One road in. Two roads out, one to glory and the other to disappointment. Afetr getting the tickets so early, it was disappointing to find our group on the first two rows in the in-goal are for our £25, but as it turned out, it was the ideal place. Five tries, three right in front of us, and a 38-9 victory which made to up to a certain extent for the disappointment of last year. Budge had probably his best game of the season, despite being binned and telling Chris White that he was having a shocker. Darren Fox came of age, and deservedly got the final try. Jorgy was on the pitch for thirty seconds, and went in under the posts. It was just a perfect afternoon, topped off by getting a tour of the Blackbird Leys estate as the bus driver got lost going back into the city centre. Bring on Gloucester, who had got through controversially the previous day at the Gardens by beating Leicester with two uncontested scrums.

Now I know it’s not a Saints match, but I must mention 9th March. My first home England match, Sall’s first Twickenham trip, seats in the gods, but what a fantastic day. Great practice for the final, trying to spot where our seats might be.

Another trip to Barf, this time on the train and a chance to look round before the game. We stood with a visiting American college team, who couldn’t believe the etiquette or the fact that Barf had so much ball and did nothing with it. It ended up with being a fairly comfortable win, with Grays playing himself into the England squad, and Danny Grewcock deciding to feast on Mark Connors’ scrum cap as they were both binned for the second game at the Rec in succession - it actually meant that Grewcock was binned in all three games against Saints this season - a record?

Two more England wins, this time without Robbie but with Grays on the bench, followed, as did a try for Ben in the win over Scotland. Once again, tickets were obtained for the Scotland game (thank you Mr Beal for donating them), so both Ben’s try and Grays’ conversion were in front of us. Two wins out of two, one more needed.

The Friday before the Grand Slam game came the warm up, a strong “Wanderers” side versus a strong Leicester lineup, featuring everyone’s friend Little Austin at fly-half. His main contributions? Slagging off Saints fans in the meagre crowd as they moved around towards the bar during injury time, and slicing a clearance straight into C Block. Blow me, it’s coming straight for me. Mine!!…

…and smack bang into my waiting arms. I found out later on that the Tigers lot in front of me (Tim, Zara etc.) were dying for me to drop it. Well, that might be the standard at Welford Road, but we can play rugby at the Gardens…

Suffice to say, as it was them at the Gardens, we lost, but it was quite a decent night - I think everyone was focussed on the big one.

Cup final day. 14 internationals again. Ballagher Buses. A tour of Feltham Young Offenders Institute. An hour to get along Rosebine Avenue. A picnic in the car park. Seeing Westie on his fifteenth lap of Middlesex on a coach. Sunbathing whilst missing Orrell win their well-deserved trophy. Collecting a wad load of money for tickets, only to spend it the following weekend. And for what?

Well, even though Saints lost, the first half will live long in the memory as a classic game of rugby, swinging from Grays kicking us into the lead, then Daws and Wally between them giving James Simons-Boswell the chance to go over for the try, Grays getting us back into the game with his boot, and then the magic moment, as Grays made room for Bealer to burst through a gap and go unopposed under the posts, to send the 25,000 Saints fans wild. For nothing else than Vicarage Road in May 2000, he deserved that try. By the interval the lead had changed hands seven times, and Saints were leading 22-20. Forty minutes from finally getting that trophy…

So what happened? Well, to my eyes, Saints were on the back foot from the restart, and we could all have done without James Forrester going over in the corner within a couple of minutes to restore the Glaws lead. We could also have done without Spreaders binning Grays, and we could have done without playing a team with such as good a tactical kicker as Ludo Mercier. Once again though, just as in the first half last year, there was a pointless 40 minutes and Gloucester deservedly went away with the trophy and a 40-22 victory. It was painful (ask Christy, Lom or Sall, they saw a lot of toys come out of the pram), but nowhere near as bad as last year. We will win this cup one day, the sooner the better, because there is only so much anguish one man can take.

By the Wednesday, it was time to head off to Toulouse for the Heineken Cup quarter-final. Having lost a bet at Heathrow as to what gate the flight was going out from, I ended up with the beverage bill that evening, in a slightly damp Toulouse. The club shop (basically a city centre store) was mightily impressive, especially as they let us dump our suitcases and rucksacks down whilst we dripped around their spotless shop, and then watched us spend only a few euros to start off with (we put that right by the weekend though!). Thursday brought Carcassonne, and an hour hunting for Ballagher and Hippo whilst walking around the old town (you had to be there), whilst Friday was spent avoiding the showers whilst sightseeing and watching the main bulk of the travelling army arrive. By Saturday, you couldn’t move for GBG shirts! Friday night saw the presentation of the Toulouse Le Trek T-shirt to Rob, the manager of the Frog & Rosbif, with Saturday morning the grand photocall outside the Ibis.

As for the match, well, going away to the best team in Europe (as I thought at the time and as they turned out to be) was always going to be difficult. Even though after half an hour it was level pegging at six-all, there was really only one team in it, and by half time the gap had opened up to 19-6. Steve Thompson summed it up quite nicely that night, “it took us half an hour to realise they were c**p!”. From there onwards it was an uphill battle, so to get it back to 25-16, after a wonderful try in the corner from Jon Sleightholme, and looking at that stage that if another try could be squeezed out then Saints would go on to win, was great credit to the side. However…one stray pass, one kick on, one try under the posts, and one subsequent exit from Europe (and one toy throwing session again!). In the cold light of day, if you’re going to lose anywhere, lose somewhere like Biarritz or Toulouse, rather than Edinburgh or Cardiff as in previous years. What made the pain a little better was the likes of Smudger, Daws, AB and Bruce all coming up and thanking us for our support (and apologising for the performance) after the game.

Two more days in Toulouse, both with gale force winds, and then it was a reluctant return to Blighty, and hoping that the forthcoming game against Bristol would be better. Weeeeeellllllll…if you just watched the first half, you’d have a got a massive sense of deja-vu. 13-7 down at half-time, under performing, and not only had Garath Archer managed to stay on the field for forty minutes, he’d also scored the Bris try. Neither statistic lasted that long, Archer visiting the bin, and Saints running up 36 unanswered points, as the Vass-Brooks-Tucker axis worked wonders and put in Tucks, Bruce, Sleights, and the fabulous Mr Fox for tries to add to Oriol’s first half effort. It was the best display of free-flowing rugby all season, and had it been eighty minute rugby, then the score could have been frightening. You had to feel sorry for Bristol, yet just hope that they could somehow survive. As it turned out, had we stopped at 21-13, Bris would have stayed up. It was that close…

An early Easter Sunday, an egg that didn’t get delivered and subsequently got eaten three weeks later in a low moment, and possibly the most frustrating game of the season. Annoyingly, it just had to be the one with the longest trip home of the season as well, and I was doing the match report. Five hours up to Newcastle, in one of the four coaches laid on by the club (ok, it was a minibus), and I couldn’t find Mally, who I’d promised the egg to (although I did find out weeks later that I missed her by thirty seconds on more than one occasion), but it was nice to buy beer at reasonable prices, even though the fact that it was blinking freezing meant that not too much could be consumed. It also meant that I completed the set of Premiership grounds.

Four points would be vital in the pursuit of the top three position that Smudger craved, but he had said pre-match that Saints would be chasing maximums from now on. It all started so well, being 20-12 up at half time thanks to two trademark sniping tries from Daws and a first try from the Wookie. Worryingly though, Jonny Wilkinson’s boot kept them in it, and as Saints chased the fourth try and a bonus point in the second half, there was always the possibility that it could all turn pear-shaped. And so it did. Wilkinson pegged it back to 20-15, and it seemed for all the world that Saints were now holding on. It wasn’t quite enough. Two minutes to go came the inevitable converted try, and the pain of seeing three points being thrown away in the pursuit of five. But it still wasn’t over - there was still time for Grays to hit the bar with a sixty metre penalty. Whose arms did the ball fall into? That man Wilko. All over then. Lander had not endeared himself to us again, but Saints had thrown this one away, and it was a quiet journey home.

The chance of the top three was now over, and it was now imperative that Saints finished fourth in the hope of scraping into the Heineken Cup. It wouldn’t be easy though, not with the visit of a free-scoring Sale side to the Gardens. With Sky showing the game, then we had all of the usual garbage from Lardy Barnes beforehand, so as a motivational tool, it was perfect. By half time Saints were 14-0 up through tries from John Leslie and Ben Cohen, and were playing some lovely stuff. Indeed, it was only a try from an outrageously forward pass that let Sale back into the game, and Spreaders, who seemed to be starting to make a trend of having a mare refereeing the Saints, was treated to a rendition of “are you Lander in disguise?”. Thankfully, the normal order was soon resumed, and Saints went away with a crucial victory (even more so because the fat bloke doing the commentary was totally cheesed off) after another Leslie try. Fourth place had now boiled down to Saints, Leicester or Leeds - whoever won two matches would get the automatic European place.

Another Friday night trip, this time because of the Army-Navy match the following day, so it could only be the Stoop and Harlequins. The Ballagher transportation company got us there so early that the ticket office wasn’t open, so we had time to walk into Twickenham and have a meal at the Bangladeshi restaurant that me and Sall had come across after the England-Scotland match - and very nice it was again too. With the rain having come down for about and hour before the kick off, it was a pleasant surprise that it didn’t rain during the game - possible the only thing off the field that was pleasant, apart from the company of course. Suffice to say that I would seriously consider not going to Quins for a night game again. On the pitch was possibly the scrappiest fayre of the season, but a first half penalty try, followed by second half efforts from Brett Sturgess and Nick Beal put Saints in control - or so we thought. Three minutes into injury time, Paul Burke pulled the score back to 24-19, and you just hoped that they wouldn’t score again. It went the other way. A Grayson cross kick, the cuckoo of English rugby Dan Luger bodged it completely, and Ben offloaded the ball to Mark Tucker to secure the win and the bonus point - in the seventh minute of injury time! It just about made a difficult night bearable.

By the time Leeds got to a sold out FG, the mission was clear - a win would guarantee fourth. For either team. Winner takes all. Pre-match, the first annual COYSDC picnic was affected by wind, and not all the kind caused by Paul Flatt’s chillies! I guess we all knew that it would be a good day by the late appearance from his sickbed from Saintsby, although we weren’t really intending to put poor old Bob into a different one by the end of the day. In the lower reaches of C Block, the cards for the first round of Jimgo were handed round as Jorgy and Mattie Stewart led the team out on their last appearance at the Gardens. Leeds were intending to take every point they could get, relying on Braam Van Straaten’s boot to put them 6-0 up. Grays then kicked a rare drop goal, before what everyone hoped would happen - a Jorgy try in the corner and trademark celebration. Daws then appeared to stub his toe when screwing the conversion wide, and only survived two minutes of the second half before being replaced by Vassy, another making his last home appearance.

It was tight, and tension was starting to mount as news came through that Sarries were beating Sale 27-7. If the scores stayed the same it wouldn’t be fourth we were playing for, it would be a most unlikely third! Two Bruce penalties extended the lead to beyond a score, before, with four minutes of normal time left, Wally went over in the corner to secure the win. Two minutes later, Oriol skipped over the line for the third try to get us all hoping that there may be a fourth around the corner. Jorgy stepped up to take the conversion, and got the biggest cheer of the day when it went over. By now, Sarries were 34-14 in front, and then teletext (the real reason mothers stay at home on Saturdays) flicked over to say 34-19. Even as our match was finishing, Sale were one try away from securing third place. If they didn’t score another one, then Saints would get in on having won more games. I have never been more glad when I heard the words “final score” down the end of my mobile, and was quite pleased to have beaten Geoff’s announcement via Caroline by about a minute. All of the talk leading up to the Leeds game was focussing on getting the win, getting fourth, and then the players going on holiday. Would a trip to Wasps for the right to meet Gloucester prove to be a game too far?

In a word, yes. Much as we all hoped that we could have a return match with Glaws at Twickers, it was not to be. In a match very similar to the Toulouse game, Saints kept it tight in the first half before conceding a late try, and despite Ben going over in the corner with ninety seconds of the restart, that was it for Saints points tally this season, and two more Alex King kicks secured the win. As it turned out, Wasps went on to hammer Glaws in the final. Who knows if that could have been us?

So, the rite of passage is over. I’ve watched some great, good, and indifferent rugby. There have been some great, good and indifferent trips (Biarritz, Cardiff, Bath and Toulouse in the great, Quins and Newcastle in the indifferent). One thing I have done is meet some great people, mainly through this site - and excursions into others. Regrets? Few. I wish that I could have persuaded WMS to see a doc on the Biarritz Saturday morning, but I think we were all thrown off track a bit; I wish that I’d never had that bet - no, that’s wrong, I just wish that what happened a week later didn’t; I wish that the lead up to the Tigers away game wasn’t filled with sadness; I wish that the cup final could have ended at half time.

Despite the regrets, it’s still been the best ten months of my life. As much as I say that I won’t go to every game next season, I wouldn’t be surprised to be typing another one of these next June, hopefully reflecting on a trophy or two, and a Ben Cohen hat-trick somewhere along the way. As one of my friends says whilst clutching onto his shirt badge, it’s in here…

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