What the supporters thought of the Irish win

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By The Supporters
May 22 2002

What the supporters and some experts said about Sunday's play off quarter final with London Irish. In the interests of being nice, I've tried to stick to comments about the match itself.

Supporters

West Midlands Saint
Was the Irish game plan to beat the proverbial out of Jar-Jar. Not the best advert for LI Rugby. Thought their second try was a cracker but we had too much nouse - even though they just seemed to want a fight. More later when I calm down.

Andy Mulhearn
There was a high level of frustration all round I think. There were at least two occasions where I thought Saints players should have been carded - both for punches - but this seemed to pass the ref by. While I don't condone afters on the pitch, it can be hard to keep calm when the ref seems to lose control, as a lot of Irish fans felt he did in the first half.

West midlands saint
He certainly could have carded the entire Irish back row for taking cheap shots at Daws. Why the Irish supporters booed the ref, heaven knows - perhaps he was the first one this season to ping them for repeated offside at just about every ruck. Saints, apart from Wally (justified when the opposing hooker dangerously pops a scrum?) and one neat right from JP, kept their cool rather well I thought.

Chris Dawson
Just back from Reading and had a couple of thoughts :-
1. I thought LI were supposed to be the home team. At least half the crowd must have been from Northampton and didn’t we make some noise!!
2. Irish tactics - why just send out a second team and tell them to completely ignore the rulebook. Whets the point. Is this what Mr Venter calls being competitive??? Perhaps LI should rename themselves London Offside

Adam LI
From an plastic paddy so it comes with all the bias that you'd expect! But Dawson was just being gobby, we applauded him off (in a strictly sarcastic way but with no malice) and he reacted by pointing at the scoreboard for us. Our response was singing our second favourite song of the day (the first being "we're all going on a summer holiday!") which was "we won the cup", not entirely chivalrous, I know, but it wasn't intended with malice, just a bit of fun poked at a tournament that isn't worth the paper it is written on and is just looking to injure tired players. As for Beal and Bruiser, well they were a little upset as we had the cup on display (well it is our last game of the season and the boys wanted to share it with the fans). Nick and Bruiser didn't take to well to that (I can understand that) and expressed their disappointment. We didn't take offence, neither did our boys (every one of which said that Beal was a sound bloke this evening). So, to sum up, Gobby was being gobby, no surprise there, Bruiser and Beal were a little wound up but it was mountains and molehills time.

Mr Roff
Those nice chaps at the Beeb managed to capture that particular occasion. Credit to Daws for not reacting badly.

Saintham
today confirmed what I have long thought Saints fans are the best, the very best! we made that mad stad our own at times completely drowning out Irish. what’s more, Northampton saints fans are not fair-weather fans they have definitely been there through good times and bad but they are always there in numbers and in voice and they must be the best, the very very best !!!

Swill
Forget the fact that it's an irrelevant competition. The look on the players' faces at the end as they applauded the crowd indicated that they felt some personal demons had been exorcised.

St. Bart
According to my neighbour in the West Stand the looks on the players faces as they arrived in their coach was strained to say the least. As for it being an irrelevant competition, if you go into any game as "not interested" you will get your comeuppance, and deservedly so. I for one was proud of the team and the supporters in spite of it being a poor game.
Wonder of JarJars late knee injury will get better for next weekend's next meaningless match against the Baa Baas? Thought the Irish wolfhound was well up for MOM though.

St. Bart
Had Sideshow been suffering with the virus we heard about last week? Certainly not the player he was in the last few games. And Bealer did drop him right in it a number times as WMS said above. Get Joe some kicking lessons from Grase (agreed he made some great tackles) and 15 is Sideshow's position next season.

Saint Ian
Re Sideshow virus, it looks like he was one of those affected according to Rich's match report. You are right, Larry does need to educate him in the noble art of kicking and then he will be a lot further forward to being the 'finished article' that he can be...and being Billy Whizz' replacement in the future England line-up! As the Dome was kicking penalties and conversion for Pests yesterday, it can't be that difficult (can it?) As well as kicking from ball in hand, I still think we need another good place kicker or two; even with the likes of Jar-Jar and Bealer we depend too much on Larry.

West Midlands Saint
Bealer - in spite of his two tries, dropped Sideshow in the brown stuff three times in the first few minutes - not taking responsibility and throwing suicide passes.
I thought Grace had a good one - what has happened to his tackling? - he just won't let go!

Saint Ian
I see your point in part, WMS, but if this was indeed the case, why was Sideshow the one taken off so early? The suicide pass that led to the first try should have been cleared with the boot of Sideshow (there was enough time), rather than him try to run it; it might be something to do with his kicking skills. He's (Sideshow that is) been superb in the last three matches but didn't seem to fire yesterday. Still, we have a talented youngster there and hopefully he'll still be with us next season.

Ajack
I have to disagree with the Bealer suicide pass, he was running back "blind" to the opposition, Sideshow was facing them. In this situation Bealer would always react to the call of the man facing the opposition. I know Joe is getting good press at the moment, but I feel his ability to read the situation is the reason he is not getting more starts. This is not a one off case, but hopefully with a lot of work this will be improved and we will see his running skills more often.

Broonie
happy to say I decided against going when I heard they were going to parade the cup from what I saw on the telly we were absolutely shocking and the Irish juniors showed a truly sheasby-esque persistence in being offside and coming round the side of the ruck with a 2 yard start . I think it would have been hard for any other team to get away with what the Irish did over selection, but they will , thanks to the usual Anglo-Saxon post -imperial guilt thing .it's a bit like the licence the French take in the EU -you can privately think it's a bit much, but it's very non-p.c. to say so . certainly sale and Leicester, both of whom had every reason to field weakened sides , did not do so ,but whoever wins this cup will now not be able to feel that they did so legitimately. I really think we should be able to make the simple distinction between the club/plc at LI and the supporters. because one does not admire one should not mean that one cannot enjoy the company of the other .conversely, just because you like the supporters should not mean that you feel in some way cheated if the actions of the management upset you.

Griff
Well-done Saints. You deserved the win yesterday, and the supporters I met were as fantastic as the ones I met at HQ. Glorious in defeat and just as superb in victory, you should be proud. With regard to our team, facts are facts - what can you do with 14 injuries. If you guys had qualified for HC already do you honestly think you'd have fielded the top drawer ? We're going to have to make a huge jump next year to even compete in the HC so starting the off-season by crocking the rest of the squad would have been madness. Having said that I loved watching our future players, I hope you agree they didn't disgrace the shirt. Barret, Flavin, Drake and Burke I thought were awesome bearing in mind this step-up they'd taken. The Ref, I hope Mr Pearson reviews his performance and learns from his mistakes. He was woeful. Yes, the youngsters were over-keen and often in the wrong but that don’t mean he can ignore offences from the opposing team. He needed to stamp authority on that game early on, he never did - even his sending off seemed half-hearted. My main annoyance was that Saints had turned up to play a game, the youngsters seemed keen to chuck the ball about we were all up to watch a good game and he was incapable of reffing one. I don't think he affected the result but he did take the shine off what could have been a party. Ah well, I'm off to put my wig in mothballs. Good luck against Bris. They looked a handful at Welford Road, see you again next year.

Nick O
Good support for a good team who were deserved winners. The supporters I met in the east stand and in the jazz cafe afterwards were in good form and the team stuck to the task at hand against a team whose inexperience showed. Good luck against Bristol and the match that hopefully follows.

Sam Wigg
Sunday's game - it was always likely to be a poor match and was. Great atmosphere generated by the Saints supporters and great refereeing. At last someone who spotted their centres permanently off side. Couldn't give a monkey’s which side Oirish put out I’ll support the Saints whether they're playing those up the road or the Oirish under 3's. Only annoying thing was lack of programmes due to not many people expected surely they should realise that Saints do have quite good travelling support whatever the occasion. Some good tries but particular favourite highlight of match was As-you-like-its attempted catch of the ball.
Some below par Saints performances from the likes of Shawsy (due to illness), Moir (sneaky suspicion he could be one to go) and Wally. Man of the match between Bruiser and wee Tam.

Gregor
Booing Mattie off the pitch is just the pantomime villain stuff. Exactly what we've done to the likes of Ryan, Arch-ole & others in the past. Can't see anything wrong with it.

A lot of LI types near me were more upset about the refereeing but I have to say I thought the ref was one the better ones I've seen this year. He was totally consistent about rolling away from the tackle area, staying on feet in the rucks & even pulled us up for wheeling scrums by pulling on the tight-head (which not many refs penalise). The LI loosehead incidentally was very lucky not to walk for his second yellow right at the end when he killed ruck 2 metres out...

Broonie
It’s amazing what you can do to wheel a scrum these days without pulling, by stuff like reversing foot-positions, weakening a bind here or there (not exclusively in the front row) etc and tom and Mattie practise this constantly with Hugh Campbell in the Scots squad, but you're right, the ref was spot on, Mattie was indeed pulling the one we got pinged for



Professionals

Wayne Smith in the Independent
"How do you prepare to play a side who are not taking the competition seriously?"
"I come from a land where you want to win every time you pull on a shirt. What we saw today discredited the tournament, and discredited the London Irish jersey too."
And on the play off structure:
"Did Monty Python come up with this?"



Gary Gold – London Irish, in Sporting Life.
"It makes it a farce. For Northampton now to have to go away is unbelievable."

Conor O’Shea – London Irish, in Sporting Life.
"The two things that have come out of this game for our benefit are the performance of our young players with Kevin Barrett proving that he is an outstanding prospect, and the fact that defeat gives us a couple of extra weeks off before we start training again.".

Budge Pountney in the Chron
“It doesn’t worry me a tinker’s cuss, as long as we are playing London Irish it doesn’t bother me who they are turning out.
“We had a lot of injuries and a lot of sickness in the camp this week, and we only managed to train as a team yesterday. It was the same for both sides, but we just have a stronger squad.”

JP in the Chron
“Twickenham is now 80 minutes away and it’s amazing what that can do to people. All of a sudden the bumps and the bangs go away. Hopefully, and it’s a big ask down at Bristol, we can have another day out at Twickenham.”