News: AP: Newcastle Falcons vs Northampton Saints - Preview

By HRsaints fan
February 18 2016

After back-to-back wins over Harlequins and London Irish is Northampton Saints rollercoaster season finally back on track? Saints travel "oop north" on Sunday to face an improving Newcastle Falcons team and our esteemed COYSDC contributor HRsaints fan (David to his mates) takes his usual comprehensive look ahead to the game...

NEWCASTLE FALCONS vs NORTHAMPTON SAINTS

AP: Sunday, 21st February 2016 - 3pm (no TV)

KINGSTON PARK STADIUM, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

MATCH PREVIEW

There are times when it seems that one event can change a whole season for a team. I believe that this event for Saints may have been 81 minutes into a very tight game at the Stoop almost two weeks ago. There was no doubt that Saints were trying to play a brand of rugby that they hadn’t played in any of this seasons previous games (with the possible exception of the second half of the game against Falcons in Milton Keynes but that seems an eternity ago). Gone was the aimless box kicking, the running into opponents rather than space, the receipt of the ball whilst generally standing still and the main bulk of tries coming from a very well organised rolling maul. The game plan had changed, it was great to see and had yielded two really good tries, but it seemed that as the ball went back to Ben Botica in the dying moments of the game a win would elude Saints once again. And yet approximately one minute later our own Ben was touching down behind the posts and the sheer delight on the faces of the players and coaches was obvious. Indeed I can’t recall seeing Jim that animated since the end of the Premiership Final in 2014.

So skip forwards one week and an ecstatic crowd witnessed, in my opinion, the best home performance this season and I am convinced that the level of confidence shown by the players stemmed very much from the win the week before and those events in the 81+ minutes of that game.

The question that I and my fellow supporters over in Church’s stand Block 17 (as it is now) were wondering whilst watching the game on Saturday was “why has it taken this long to start playing this way”?

Certainly there were hints from some of the players that there had been a discussion about this and some decisions made. I am quite a curious person and I would love to have heard more gossip about those meetings. Was it the players or the coaches that changed things, or was it a joint decision? In reality it matters not one jot. All that does matter is that Saints have rediscovered the fast moving and off-loading rugby that we all knew they could play, but which had largely deserted them up until the last two games.

Before the Quins game we had scored 15 tries in the Premiership, 7 at home and 8 away. Two games later and the total is 23 and there were some absolutely cracking examples amongst those 8 tries; Christian Day’s excellent running line against Quins which enabled him to be on Ken Pisi’s shoulder for the final pass of a brilliant move that at one point in time seemed to be going backwards, and who among us knew that we had Usain Bolt (known more usually as Tom Wood) playing for us? That was some serious pace he was generating against London Irish.

So - all in all, I, like 15,000 others - left the Gardens at a far more reasonable time of 5pm on a late Saturday afternoon grinning from ear to ear.

And more grinning was to follow.

George North’s excellent try against the Scots (wait until you see how the lads are playing when you return, George, you’re gonna love it) and, to cap it all, Wasps 8 try demolition of the Sieve Wolf Pack. I have to say that no-one saw that particular result coming. I have toyed with the idea of ringing my Saracens supporter friend, but have decided to leave him wallowing in misery. Up until yesterday Saracens had only conceded 5 tries at home and then they get thumped by the biggest score ever against them in a home game. Incredible.

So this rather odd season continues. Odd in that results, and form, seems to be a rather fluctuating factor. Bath, who last season were third in the league of try scoring teams behind Wasps and Saints (and who reached the Premiership Final with a seven try rout of that club up the road from us) are now just one place from propping up that particular table with only Newcastle Falcons having scored fewer tries. Wasps seem to be playing better with half their first team missing. Gloucester looks like a force once again after so many false dawns. Sale are making a serious dent in other teams aspirations. But the form of the early front runners is rather variable. Whether that is due to the International call ups is not clear and probably won’t be any clearer until later on in the season.

In fact I decided that because Saints had only really started playing two weeks ago we should restart the league from that time onwards. This will henceforth be called the Saintorian Rugby Calendar. And it makes excellent reading. At the top of the heap are Wasps (9 points). 2^nd are Saints, also on 9 points; Gloucester and Sale fight out 3^rd and 4^th place with 8 points each; our opponents on Sunday, Newcastle Falcons, are 5^th; Bath are 6^th, Irish 7^th, Saracens 8^th, Exeter 9^th, Worcester 10^th, Leicester Tigers 11^th and Harlequins bottom. One can but wish…….

I fully acknowledge that this is a pointless and rather silly exercise but it does provide some insight on the current form of the teams (albeit only over 2 games). Of the ‘proper’ top five teams of the current Premiership table only Wasps stay in the top half of my particular league. Saracens, Exeter, Tigers and Quins are all down in 8^th to 12^th places. And additionally when one looks at the ‘real’ table it can be seen that the recent results have tightened things up considerably with only 11 points separating 2^nd from 8^th.

So what of this coming Sunday? Well, in the Saintorian league it is second versus fifth, but sadly in reality sixth versus tenth. The two teams are separated by 15 points and a ‘for and against’ difference of 158 points. But, as their last three home games have proved, Newcastle are no push-over.

As others have mentioned in separate threads, the fact that Falcons beat Tigers (and thoroughly deserved to do so) should leave the Saints team and coaches under no illusions about the task in hand. There is talk already that this may be Newcastle’s largest attendance this season; and this is being in no part credited to an anticipated large away contingent from Saints (I salute you all who make the effort to attend Saints away games no matter how far the distance or the timing of the game). I am a little unclear why Newcastle are playing two home games on the trot and with their success of last weekend it must be good for them to be running out at home again for the next round of the Premiership rather than being on the road. I do see though that this works against them later on in March.

I am pleased though to see Falcons winning and to see good crowds coming to watch what an attractive style of play. We do need Rugby Union to thrive in the North East (and West) and so the continued success of Newcastle and Sale can only be good for this. Nevertheless I obviously cannot extend my desire to see Newcastle winning to this Sunday’s game, but I wish them continued success for all other games, especially against any team that might be pushing for a top four finish.

There is an excellent thread already running on the ComeOnYouSaints forum regarding how we should play for this game. For what it is worth (which is not a lot!) my view is that we should, and will, stick to the game plan has been used so effectively for the last two games with perhaps slight adaptations to reflect that we are playing away from home. On that basis I would also expect to see a very similar team selection for this game (although there may be the odd rotation or two). Similarly I would not expect much of a change in the Newcastle team.

In terms of predictions both teams will be very anxious to keep that winning habit; Falcons so that they can continue to pull away from what is turning out to be a ferocious battle at the bottom of the table, and Saints so that they can continue their push towards a top four play-off spot (especially given the teams that we have yet to play away from home). So there will be no complacency by either team. However, and I know that I am biased, I think that Saints will edge what may be a close, but hopefully for both sets of fans, enjoyable encounter.

To all those travelling up to Newcastle, safe journeys, and I trust that we will all still be grinning come Sunday evening.

COYS

News: AP: Newcastle Falcons vs Northampton Saints - Preview

Posted by: ComeOnYouSaints.com (IP Logged)

Date: 18/02/2016 12:26

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