Saints Prepare Warm Welcome

By Ridley
September 5 2002

If we are going to beat Saints on Saturday we'll have to take on 12,000 baying supporters first. Franklin's Gardens is opening its doors to the faithful to reveal the completely renovated stadium ... and they're planning a party. Let's hope we're not there to provide the comic relief.

The game kicks off at 2.00 to accommodate the Sky Cameras but its worth making the trip to see the new ground.

Saints have alrady named their squad with a few changes to the one which went down 24-21 at Sale last weekend.

Coach Grant Seely says he isn't rotating his squad merely picking a side to beat us.

He's giving a debut to Aussie lock Mark Connors who has barely got over his jet lag. He'll partner another new boy in Steve Williams.

There will be a welcome return on the wing for long term injury victim Jon Sleightholme who last started a Premiership game two years ago. Ben Cohen will move to centre.

Falcons are likely to stick with the side which kicked Wasps out of the game last with the exception of Richard Arnold coming in for Phil Dowson.

Saints:15 NICK BEAL 14 JON SLEIGHTHOLME 13 BEN COHEN 12 JOHN LESLIE (capt) 11 ORIOL RIPOL 10 PAUL GRAYSON 9 MATT DAWSON 1 TOM SMITH 2 STEVE THOMPSON 3 MATT STEWART 4 MARK CONNORS 5 STEVE WILLIAMS 6 ANDREW BLOWERS 7 BUDGE POUNTNEY 8 GRANT SEELY

Replacements: 16 Dan Richmond 17 Robbie Morris 18 Rob Hunter 19 Mark Soden 20 Ian Vass 21 James Brooks 22 Peter Jorgensen