Supporters views after the win at Bristol

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By The Supporters
September 19 2002

Following the away win over Bristol at the green and grassy Memorial Ground, the supporters expressed their opinion on the COYSDC messageboard. Once again there were too many comments to include all of them so we tried to pick out the best bits.

Stockers
Don't know if anyone else thought this but Archer's try off an attacking line out seemed to be "manufactured" by the Bris tail enders at the line out taking the defenders out off the ball, clearing a path for the ball carrier. Budge certainly seemed to dislike it.

Christy
All the Bristol supporters surrounding me thought "we had brought the ref in the bus with us". We certainly seemed to get a lot of decisions going for us, just for once. I don’t know enough about referring to judge. Matt D was back to his usual conversations with ref, but unusually he also spent more time talking to the rest of the team - so who was captain then? Leslie was busy trying to breach their defence, and making every tackle he could - he certainly gave 100%. We had one lovely decision going against us right at the beginning of the game - ref blew the whistle because we were taking too much time forming a line-out right near their goal line - from which they scored. Too many captains on the pitch? Made the team wake up, though!

West Midlands Saint
As most people assumed - we won in spite of not playing awfully well. The pack was worryingly pushed around although the back row turned over a lot of their ball and I thought Grant Seely had a big game. Ben's try was awesome - breaking tackles with sheer brute force. He MUST play on the wing. Once Jorgy came on we seemed to have much better balance and were better aligned defensively. With Ben at 13 we are wasting the gas of Snitch and Sleights. Mark Connors looked more at home this week and Steve Williams is a tremendous asset. Some wonderful banter as big Bruv and I stood in the middle of the Bris contingent. They are off to Glaws next week but the fans are beaten already.

OneZed
From a Bris perspective I agree your backs had more zip when Cohen was on the wing but given the talent on 'paper' they are still quite pedestrian - is it Grayson? Surprised at your scrum - usually expect your lot to be one of the better packs. Thought Phillips had a good game when he came on - is it a coincidence that we started turning over the ball in the mauls after that? Exciting but skill levels not wonderful thought you deserved it on less mistakes and for capitalising well on ours (Leslie try). Pountney looked less than happy in the dugout below me after being subbed - didn’t look injured? As usual good banter and healthy numbers of visiting fans - looking forward to repeating the last few years and beating you at that great new stadium you’ve got.

Stockers
We did play badly in places but what I liked was the never say die attitude. Our pack was, I thought, better than theirs with their front row in a lot of trouble at the scrum. Grant and Blowers were awesome as usual but Budge looks a bit out of sorts. Connors and Williams are both class but the line out and the restarts were awful. Our defence was pretty tight and held together well especially when Bris were trying very hard late in the second half. We so nearly got the bonus point but JL fired out a forward pass when we had two men looking to score. I have some sympathy as he'd had a bad knock to his shoulder moments before and was not passing properly. He looked mortified afterwards. We still have a lot to do in the line out and on the restarts but the backs are running the ball fairly well and there is much yet to come, I feel. Well done Saints...bring on Bath!

Moanjam
In recent years Saints have gotten into the habit of blowing hot and cold- on Sunday they blew cold and fortunately it was Bristol that caught it! Mistakes all over the place and hardly one move came off all game (can't comment on Ben's try as I was seeing a man about a dog at the time!)As said already Saints won as they made fewer mistakes than Bris...Pichot's cock-up was horrendous which lead to Budge's try and how on earth they missed a 3 man-over lap in the 2nd half I will never know. Both team failed to take advantage of spilled ball and seemed slow at countering with only 2 exceptions, both leading to a try a-piece. Still it was entertaining stuff, sort-of. I hope the large gentleman from the family terrace visits the gardens next year (we'll have to stock up on pies) so he can continue hurling abuse at Daws even when Continental-Pony was kicking for goal! Man of the match for me was Daws for getting hold of the game at the end. Oh and a word for the countless Cohen at centre bashers.... If Smith and Ratcliffe think he should play there...who are we to argue!

Howlin
It’s worse listening online than being there. I need a drink. Sounded a close one, a good win against a side desperate not to lose their third in a row. Well-done Saints

St.Bart
Sounded pretty dire on the radio, but a win's a win. Neither of the Radio Nut Hampton guys could believe their eyes. Seems like both sides were as bad as each other. Still if we can win when we're playing badly, someone's in for a thumping when we do get it right.
Looking forward to some un-biased opinions from returning Saintly ones.
BTW, we do get around don't we? Saw 2 Saints shirts in the crowd at Barf and even one at the last night of the Proms. Quite an eclectic bunch

St.Marlowe
I am beginning to get very worried about "if we can win when we're playing badly".........It sounded as though we were pants until Ben went to the wing and made way for Jorgy. Anybody there who can substantiate?

Stockers
This is a long hard season, something that Smudger and Brendan are not really used to. The NPC and the Super 12's are much shorter in duration. So we need a large squad for rotation to avoid player burn out. As long as we're winning and the changes made are sensible, (unlike Sarries this weekend!!) we should enjoy seeing a few different players and positional changes during the season. Sunday was a good example with Budge going off, Connors moving to the back row, JP coming on fresh and ripping the ball from Bristol at a couple of mauls. Then Ben moving to the wing, from where he scored that fantastic try. These sorts of moves during a match all help to disorientate the opposition both in attack and defence. And talking of defence, we were pretty awesome in defending our try line in the second half when Bris were piling on the pressure.

Gregor
Surprised that Showgirls thought we got the run of the decisions. This is the second game in three that we've been penalised almost to the death (the other match being Sale). I reckon we conceded something like 20 penalties & about 5 free kicks during the game. Whether the ref was right or wrong is irrelevant - we have to wise up & start playing to refs or we'll lose more games we should win just like Sale. Committed performance yesterday but I left feeling that we'd pinched a result rather than deserved it & our back play was quite ragged compared to Bristol's...

Chris Hoddle
Did anyone else notice their first Try? IT came from a lineout, it should have been ours, but the linesman was signalling their put in. We were still deciding what to do. Then the linesman realised his error, so changed his signal. At which point they were awarded a free kick from which they scored. Another of their tries came from a lineout just after Mattie was sin binned. We were trying to bring C.B. on for the lineout, but was not allowed to, thus not being able to compete fairly. Again they scored. From these two decisions I couldn't agree that we had all the luck going our way.

Elegia
Interesting you say that re the scrums stockers, as a lot of people were saying the exact same thing only in reverse (if you see what I mean) - an example would be our winning the turnover in the scrum when we were a man light in the forwards. You need to sort your throwing in at the line outs (calling them wrong?) as several were overthrown & our players got the benefit of that. Have to point out that raspberry was caught not by a fellow wing, but by our openside when he looked through for a try. Was a scrappy game with lots of mistakes, never seen so many missed overlaps, we wasted our best one with a pass to the stands & don't know what you guys did to squander the 6 on 2 in the 1st half...good luck against barf

Stockers
Nick Beal's father was sitting a couple of rows behind us in the stand as Bristol fans cried, "Forward" as the pass was delivered. As only a truly loyal father could comment, "Noooo...... just very flat!!"

Saintsby
My word but the tide must come in far up the owld Briz channel and swept away all the sand It must have swept away some of the Saints skills an all!. I reckon if we came out and played like we did in the first half then Glaws/PCP/Pests would have put 20+ on us. Too may handling errors (gloves or not!) plus cr@p restarts and lineouts and when are our forwards going to face em up and break through for the backs? Still an away win even if we were helped by Lady luck. Men of the match Ben - for his fantastic try, JL similar, Daws for getting a grip, Ripol for exciting me every time he got the ball, Mattie S for his hard work and Jorgy for adding some stability when he came on. COME ON YOU SAINTS!




Wayne Smith
I said after the defeat by Sale that we'd win a lucky one at some stage this year, and this was probably it, as well as lose a lucky one along the way.