Gloucester v Northampton - Zurich Preview

By Mark H
November 27 2003

Six months from Saturday is the Zurich Championship final. The race for it starts here. Given the relative tightness of the table, you can only really say that Bath have a significant advantage over their rivals.

You might surmise that only Rotherham (although Large will probably argue for Sarries as well) are out of the running for a top three finish. Wasps last year won 17 of their last 19 games to walk away with the title and the Parker Pen, and no doubt if a team puts together that sort of run together again, then they will be picking up silverware.

So the second half of the season starts here, with the first return fixture, and it’s a good one. Over the past four seasons, the trip to Castle Grim has always had a talking point for the post match pint. In 1999/2000, it was the Matt Dawson show as Saints went away with a 35-11 victory to leave the Shed stunned. The following season, a Christmas anything-but-cracker saw Saints get a 15-12 victory thanks totally to Simon Mannix’s torturous kicking display, as he missed three kicks from in front of the posts of increasing ease.

Since then though, Glaws have taken the spoils, with a 22-9 victory on the first day of the 2001/2002 season, that saw Junior Paramore test the strength of AB’s jaw, and then in the rain last season, an outrageous drop goal from Andy Gomersall saw the Cherry and Whites triumph 18-9.

My first thought after the game at FG was that Sky would be kicking themselves for picking the Waspies trip to Newcastle as their live game for this weekend - little were we to know then that they would be getting the return of the new rugby god. Even with that, the game at Castle Grim is undoubtedly the top fixture of round eleven, and it says something about the likely combustible nature of the eighty minutes that the RFU have decided to put their top available man, Tony Spreadbury, in charge of affairs.

There’s no point reflecting on the events of FG four weeks ago - suffice to say, all of the main protagonists involved then are available now. Smithy named the following team on Wednesday afternoon:-

15 Nick Beal
14 James Brooks
13 Chris Hyndman
12 Mark Tucker
11 Bruce Reihana
10 Shane Drahm
9 Mark Robinson
1 Tom Smith
2 Dan Richmond
3 Robbie Morris
4 Rob Hunter
5 Mark Connors
6 Grant Seely
7 Darren Fox
8 Andrew Blowers

Replacements
16 Matt Miles
17 Chris Budgen
18 Jon Phillips
19 Matt Lord
20 Johnny Howard
21 John Leslie
22 Jon Sleightholme

So, only three changes in the starting XV from last Saturday, with Sharky returning from his ban in place of Johnny Howard, Lordy taking his rest for Rob Hunter to return and Mark Tucker in for John Leslie. When I heard the team, I did think that it was quite telling that Tucks had come back into the team, and I wonder now whether he is the first choice at inside centre. Certainly it would indicate that with Tucks having played in the first game, the coaching staff have seen something in the Gloucester line up that they think can be exploited. With Saints not having scored a try on Gloucestershire turf since 2000, Saturday would be a good day to restart.

So, none of the England Four on the bench for Saints, and it remains to be seen whether any of Gloucester’s England Three return for them. Possibly the most interesting thing pre-match will depend on whether any of the Saintly England contingent are there, and more specifically, if Daws were to make an appearance, would this mean that he gets a good reception from the Shed for the first time ever? And will they insist, as last year, that Gomersall is the best nine in England, just a week after Daws carried the chariot to a winning position late in the game?

And that’s the best thing about Saints and Glaws fans. We’re as one-eyed as hell, and long may it continue. For what it’s worth, I think Daws will get a good hand (if there), and the Gummy Bear will be on the Lions tour in two years time, so we’re all happy.

Since the FG match, Glaws have lost their three games, and with it their 34 match winning run at home. Just as we did to Tigers, the record went to their local rivals, and just as happened to Tigers, the next team to win there were London Irish. For Tigers it took four months; for Glaws it took 7 days. With another defeat at Wycombe last Friday night, where they shot themselves in the foot by conceding a last kick penalty to throw away a bonus point, Glaws will be determined not to lose five in a row.

To a certain extent, someone - whether it be on or off the pitch - got the tactics wrong against us at FG. As soon as we went down to a seven man pack, I’d have brought Forrester off the bench to use his pace to try and run us ragged from the base. I also wouldn’t have given up the easy points that they did by kicking to the corner to try and get tries, certainly in the first twenty minutes of the second half when they could have chipped away at the deficit and put themselves in a position to win the game. Those lessons will have been learned though, and I would expect the team, with their returnees, to be something like:-

Thinus Delport, Marcel Garvey, Robert Todd, Henry Paul, James Simpson-Daniel, Duncan McRae, Andy Gomersall; Rodrigo Roncero, Chris Fortey, Phil Vickery, Alex Brown, Adam Eustace, Jake Boer, Andy Hazell, James Forrester.

With the replacements potentially including Junior Paramore, Trevor Woodman, Peter Buxton, and Andy Deacon, this looks a strong unit more resembling the side that nearly swept all before them last season. It’s also apparent that they will play a different game that at FG, as they won’t have the considerable skills of Simpson-Daniel at centre running along the Saints’ defensive line looking for gaps, but Todd who will run into or through the line to try and create those gaps for Simpson-Daniel or Garvey to exploit.

And all this without even mentioning the personal battles of Drahm versus Hazell, Fox versus McRae and Smith versus Vickery! Prediction wise, heart says Saints, head says Gloucester, simply because they can’t afford to lose again, and will have ten thousand referees behind them shouting for every decision to be a cherry one. No wonder the RFU wanted a full time referee in charge of this one; let’s just hope that he gets the assistance he needs from both his touch judges and most importantly, the players - if anything untoward does kick off on Saturday from either side, then I would anticipate that the citing commissioner will probably be told to go for maximum punishments this time around.

It’s got cracker written all over it, and this will be the biggest test on any Saints team this season so far. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Let’s hope that this Saturday’s head chef is that nice Mr Blowers…

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