London Irish v Northampton Saints - ZP Preview

By Mark H
January 3 2004

Years come, and years go, but some things remain the same, especially in the world of Northampton Saints. The trip to Newcastle is always the coldest trip of the season; the team will be brilliant one week, but flatter to deceive; we supporters will be there.

We always hope for a better performance than the week before; and the games against London Irish will always, somehow, end up to be the most crucial ones of the season for the team to progress.

And lo and behold, that’s exactly what we’ve got in front of us on Sunday.

Go back exactly one year, to 4th January 2003. London Irish visit the Gardens, a week after an disappointing Saints loss to Gloucester in a match that should have been won. Irish, superbly led and organised by a mercurial South African, do more than beat Saints; they embarrass them to a defeat which leaves the home supporters walking away in bewilderment at where the season is going, weeks after beating Tigers away for the first time in years.

Fast forward to 4th January 2004. Saints visit the Madejski, a week after a disappointing Saints loss to Newcastle in a match that should have been won. Irish, superbly led and organised this season by a mercurial South African, await. Will the away supporters walk away in bewilderment at where the season is going, weeks after beating Tigers at home for the first time in years?

Both clubs seem to have been inextricably linked over recent seasons; the cup final and the cup semi-final spring to mind, various comments in the media going back and forth between Brendan Venter and Matt Dawson, and matches going between the sublime (those two cup matches) to the ridiculous (the two league games last season). Going on the league game earlier this season, those dour encounters may hopefully be behind all of us, but still Irish continue to be the thorn in the Saintly side.

That match in October summed up Saints-Irish encounters perfectly. Flashes of brilliance mixed with the type of rugby that would be an insult to schoolboy errors, and nowhere was it more perfectly illustrated than in the three Irish tries scored in fifteen first half minutes. First, a Paul Sackey chip and chase that saw him outpace Bealer down the wing to go over in the corner - brilliant. Then, from a Saints lineout that was overturned in a ruck, the ball was fed along the line to leave John Clarke to have to deal with a three on one overlap as the inside-out defensive line that Smudger prefers forgot where it was and went outside in - mistake. And finally, from a penalty in front of the posts that was never signalled for a pot at goal, Mark Mapletoft tapped and ran unchallenged into the corner with the bulk of the Saintsmen gathered under the posts - shocking. If you give teams as well organised as Irish a seventeen point lead, as it turned from 7-3 to 7-24, then more often than not you’re going to lose the game.

That defeat remains the only home loss of the season for Saints - I wish I could say the same about the away record. Saints go into the game on the back of five successive away defeats in all competitions; indeed, the only away victories this season have come at Rotherham (where everyone wins) and Leicester (ditto!), and in the other away trips, I would only realistically say that Saints could (or should) have won at Sale and Newcastle - in the other games the team has been well beaten.

It’s been debated on the message boards about whether Saints can only play at home. One thing is certain, there seems to be a different style of play away from home which involves more lateral running, looking for gaps in the defensive line rather than the kind of strike running that the likes of Ben and Bruce can produce. Indeed, and as with many of the ZP games I have seen this season, a lot of the attacking moves more resemble an intense game of chess rather than a game of rugby, as both sides look to out-think (rather than outplay) the opposition. One thing is for sure, unless the away record improves dramatically - and soon - then we could be looking at another April of scrambling for a Heineken Cup place, rather than trying to win a trophy.

Away form as well has played a large part in these encounters as well - each of the last four matches (not including the Powergen games) have been won by the away side, and you have to go back to the 48-12 debacle at the Mad Jet just over two years ago for the last home victory for either side. Hopefully, history can repeat itself, and one sequence can stop at five whilst another is extended to five.

To try and end the dismal away record, Smudger named the following squad on Wednesday afternoon:-

15 Nick Beal
14 Bruce Reihana
13 Chris Hyndman
12 John Leslie (captain)
11 Ben Cohen
10 Paul Grayson
9 Mark Robinson
1 Tom Smith
2 Steve Thompson
3 Robbie Morris
4 Rob Hunter
5 Jon Phillips
6 Mark Connors
7 Darren Fox
8 Andrew Blowers

16 Dan Richmond
17 Chris Budgen
18 Matt Lord
19 Grant Seely or Mark Soden
20 Johnny Howard
21 Shane Drahm
22 Mark Tucker

So, a bit of a shake up. Ben returns from injury to take John Clarke’s place on the wing, whilst Grays comes in at fly half after Shane spent the latter minutes on Sunday hobbling about. Wally returns to the front row in Dan Richmond’s place, whilst JP come in for Grant, who will undergo a fitness test on Saturday to see whether he can take his place on the bench. As a result, Mark Connors moves to blindside flanker, and Mark Soden is on standby for the bench position. Most welcome of all is the return to the bench for Matt Lord after his injury, as Saints squad starts to clear itself of the long term injuries.

The inclusion of Grays is to me of most interest, as to me that suggests Saints are going to play a tight game and try and kick the ball behind the Irish defensive line for Ben and Bruce to push onto, and consequently force the Irish back three of (probably) Horak, Sackey and Dawson to turn and come from deep.

Irish are not announcing their team until Friday, owing to concerns over some of the knocks taken in their home defeat to Wasps last Saturday, but it would be fair to say that they key player will be whoever takes the fly-half roll. Coach Gary Gold has done a wonderful job this season of tinkering with the Venter team whilst not affecting their abrasiveness, and a lot of that has been based on the freer role that Mark Mapletoft has taken in the number ten shirt, having the kicking ability of his deputy Barry Everitt but also having a step off either foot that has thrown many teams (Saints especially) onto the back foot, which has consequently allowed the likes of Sackey and Horak to flourish.

Irish were one of the sides not affected by the World Cup, and although it would be unfair to say that their current league position of third (ahead of Saints on games won) is completely as a result of having a settled side throughout the first thirteen games, it has certainly assisted Gold, in his first season as head coach, to put down a base for the team to work on. With positions three to eight being separated by a mere five points, these last nine games of the season become almost a season of their own. The advantage of not losing players for the three games which are to be held during the Six Nations will also assist them, and I personally would make Irish favourites at the moment to grab that third spot behind Bath and Wasps. Whoever grabs it will probably need to win seven games. To steal a march on close rivals at this stage, with the league shutting down for European games for a month come five o’clock on Sunday, is almost imperative.

The referee for Sunday is the same man who took charge of the clash at the Gardens in October - Dave Pearson. It would be fair to say that he missed quite a lot on that day (for both sides), so one must hope that he has a better afternoon this time out. He will not be afraid to get cards out, having awarded 16 yellow and 1 red in his ten ZP games so far, and with reminders having been issued recently about the proper use of the yellow card for technical offences in light of some of the televised matches this season (the RFU having been particularly unhappy with separate games involving Irish and Saints so far this season), I would expect to see flashes of yellow at some point on Sunday.

If Saints are to get anything out of the season, they need to start scoring tries in groups of four and winning away from home. This time out, I’ll take the latter - bonus points tries can come in the next two weekends. As always though with these clashes, they are impossible to call with any degree of certainty, so I’ll go with home advantage in a low scoring clash.

But I hope that I’m wrong.