Reactions to the Saints vs Saracens loss

Thick and thin!
By The Supporters
October 2 2002

Connect: Saints really missed Matt Dawson, and Andy Blowers. By far and away the worse performance so far, reminded me of last year’s away game at London Irish. It seems that the finishing let us down again. Saracens didn't win this game, Saints lost it.

SaintThistle
That was awful

Redsaint
Correction, The backs were awful but the forwards were huge.
Who'd be a back in the dressing room this afternoon?

Flyhalf
as we feared and 'the broon of the toon' intimated we are not as good as we thought.

John N Roberts
Same old saints, boom one week bust the next, still no consistency to our performances. I am sure we will beat Pests next week, but it’s the week after that worries me.

Benfez
To say that you lost it as opposed to Sarries winning it is one eyed to say the least. Sarries were more committed and just went in harder. Ripol and Cohen were very well marshalled, and whilst it’s true to say that Daws was missed, so were Timmy Horan, Flats and Califano. A good game, good atmosphere, and two good sides contributed to that spectacle.

Chris Hoddle
The forwards were good...as last year. so what about the backs. No need to say anything except all the same comments as last year. Next week could be the game for our season. Lose it and it will be a time to qualify for Europe, win it and we may be in contention.


Ben Dover
Arggggggggggggggh! stamp stamp stamp, stomp, slam, kick, swear! How much more frustrating can it get? This league is probably going to be very tight this season and it'll all be down to who can win away from home and who can bag those vital bonus points. Two areas were we look like we might be weak. It's early, but we should be looking no further than a top four at the moment. Lets not get ahead of things it's good to put pressure on ourselves sometimes but we have to look at the class of the opposition and this season there are a lot of evenly matched teams out there. Sometimes we will be out thought and out played by teams that on paper might not appear our equal.

Mark H
Visible proof for the whole nation that we are not as good as we are built up to be. Credit to Sarries, you can only beat what is put in front of you. If the fans are reacting the way they did though, they must have been REALLY poor the last two weeks.

Broonie
it's noticeable that unit skills are improving weekly-witness the lineout and restarts.

Howlin
Basic skills are improving visibly. We still lack the mental strength.

Stockers
The lasting impression for me on Saturday was that we were out-thought by Sarries who employed an effective spoiling game at the breakdown, often illegally, as evidenced by the yellow card for Yandell. Without blowing my own trumpet too hard, did I not say last week that I was worried about the gap left at 9 when Daws is unavailable. I seemed that we had no clue whom our next best scrum half was until we tried it out on the pitch during a game! The 9 / 10 hinge failed and we suffered as a result.


Old Pete
Lets hope that this was the BAD ONE and that Wayne can get some right attitude going for next week and beyond.

St. Bart
Agreed about Sorries tactics at the breakdown, and some of the ref's decisions were quaint.

Howlin
Methinks our problem is at 9 & 10. Daws and Grays are top notch although Grays is solid but perhaps not creative enough.

Tedge
Do we all have unrealistic expectations ? Yes, and it's the same with fans of all teams in all sports, especially when we have a new coach with a record like WS.

Saint Tim
Supporting a club is a long and rocky road. I think we are on an upward slope in general but will have some dips.

Baldyfez
Don't be too downhearted. I think the main cause of the result was you caught the backlash after our humiliating defeat at the hands of Wasps last week. You've got a good team at FG and there's a long way still to go this season. Keep up the cracking support and remember, every cloud has a silver lining - Leicester lost their 3rd game of the season!!!

Broonie
the thing I find depressing is that we can still be beaten by the relatively simple tactic of spoiling our loose ball- i.e. we can't make it stick and go up a gear with the recycling once we encounter serious opposition.

Gregor
Poor Archie. He had an absolute nightmare of a half. Wrong options, didn't know where Larry was for most of the half & his pass is just too slow for a scrum half - he picks it up from base of scrum or ruck & then passes instead of it being one smooth movement. Johnny Howard was a lot better. Plus points were few - Steve Williams was terrific & Bealy is playing as well as any full back in England at the moment (including the Whizz Kid).

Chris Hoddle
Yesterday, miserable...future bleak are we in the top three or playing to make the numbers up. Sunday....lay in...no headache....Ryder cup.


Chris
In the pub after the game yesterday a Sarrie summed it all up in one sentence.
'We were s*** but you were worse'
couldn’t really argue with that!

WMS
The balance between control and passion is what we need and I still believe that, one day, it will all click into place.

St. Andrew
They (Sarries) certainly were playing for pride if not particularly well. Am I expecting too much ? I did think we'd beat them. We didn't seem to be forcing the pace. I was very angry indeed and have only just calmed down with today's results going our way sort of.... Wasps will be up for it. I liked everything Nick Beal did until he did that stupid forward pass.

Chris
That’s exactly what we thought.
Goode would have been 'Blowered' no doubt, had Hurricane been playing.

Saintsby
Personally being there I thought that the ref made some poor decisions and that Tom Smith try was grounded. That’s to take nothing away from Sarries they played well were the better side and deserved their win.

Large
Saints' execution was bad. Tom Smith was a little unlucky as the ref - if you're a Saints fan at least - blew up a bit too early.

St. Marlowe
On reflection, and looking at the video, even with the sin binnings Sarries had the better of a very poor ref. But your guys were up for it, our were reminiscent of a certain game at HQ last year..............some people were not committed, others were outplayed.

Come in Number 10
We were awful, the ref was awful, enough said really.....Funniest moment of the day had to be when the remote control car carrying the kicking tee broke down halfway on the pitch.

Cheesey
I know we were poor.
I know we should have won.
I know I shouldn't moan about the ref.

Chris Hoddle
All these things we know too well. To me what's worrying is that we had so much of the play, 66% at most times, and yet we could hardly say we were encamped on their line. Our defence really kept them at bay apart from the penalties.
Our pack seemed to be dominant , but apart from Smiths "try" did we really come close?

BBF
..on this occasion probably will help to get today out of the system:
-don’t like Vicarage Road - grotty place;
-we were just not up for the game -
-we never looked liked winning during the game - that's not what you need to say about a team who want to be contenders;
-very poor execution of the basics - decision making, passing, etc (Brooksy was lucky to last until half-time);
-has Raspberry suffered from the attention received so far?....he just looks very nervous at the moment;


One thing though it shows how important we (Saints fans) are at the moment as at the Gardens it seems to be a totally different story - maybe we ALL should be in the squad as number "23"!!
Anyway we will endure another boring week at work looking forward to next Saturday!
Yes!....that's made me feel better now....(it definitely IS better to talk about it!!)

sb saint
I think the raspberry was suffering from 2 things, one was over exposure, in that he received too much attention from the opposition, and the other was poor delivery.

Fat Alan
Very disappointing game. I think Sarries will be very happy with the result as they weren't particularly good apart from Goode.

Meriel
I think it's a little harsh to say we weren't particularly good! OK, so we'll need to improve before we face Gloucester next weekend, but I think we've got a lot to build on from that performance.

Christy
The rugby wasn't half as bad as the "atmosphere" as you call it. Don't you Sarries supporters object to the serious game of rugby being used as an excuse for advertising pizza?


Smurf
Don't know what it was, apparently the Tom Smith try was good, but the ref didn't know that. Can't see how Tucker was done for holding on when he fell over & was not tackled. The wonky goalposts let the Sarries drop goal in.

Old Pete
It was - a bad team beat a good team that for some reason had decided to play at their very worst . Am I pessimistic or demanding heads on platters NO NO NO - disappointed but still ready to believe that we can do better and we will

Keith
So, it was yet another game that Sarries didn't win, but the other team lost. Damn, there must be some unlucky teams out there to put us on played 5, won 3, because Bristol and Barf said exactly the same thing.


ROB B
Just to add something, Andy Goode commented after the match that when they found out Dawson was not playing that they would target Brooks. This I think was the defining reason that your game never got going.

Howlin
You (Sarries) won the game, well done, but you didn't look good.