Saints v Scarlets - Heineken Cup Review

By Mark H
February 3 2004

Due to the censorship procedures we run on the site, I can’t put in this report what I really think of this afternoon’s proceedings. Suffice to say that it was not one of the more memorable afternoons for Saints either on or off the pitch.

As a result what could well have proved a relatively comfortable path to the Heineken Cup semi-finals is gone.

And anyone who thinks that this is going to be a normal, in-depth report is going to be very much mistaken. I make no apologies for saying that if the players play as if they have no idea, then I don’t see why I should come up with those ideas for them. I don’t get paid for that - other people do.

Mind you, before anyone asks I don’t get paid for this either, I do it for the love of it. Perhaps the players ought to look as if they’re doing it for the love of it sometimes.

First the facts - Grays kicked Saints ahead early on after missing a long range strike in front of the posts; Dafydd Jones went over in the corner after the Scarlets stretched the ball from one wing to the other, but Stephen Jones put the conversion against the upright; Jones then kicked another penalty, before Grays pulled it back to the half time score of 8-6. On 47 minutes, he then kicked Saints in front, before Jones then put Llanelli back in front.

And then the absolute killer. From a turned over ball at a Llanelli scrum on Saints’ 22, Grays chipped ahead for Leslie and Reihana to run onto. Full back Barry Davies slid in, studs up, and collected the ball, with both Saints players appearing to, let’s just say, volunteer out of the tackle. Davies then bounced up, ran through weak attempts at tackles from Grayson and Hyndman, and run in under the posts. 23 minutes to go, but game over. Stuart Barnes on Sky called it a mixture of “bravery and brilliance”, but I’d like to add another word. Fluke. He could try that a thousand times in his career and he’d never do that again. Credit to him for having the vision to continue going forwards and score the try, but for a team that has prided itself on its defence in this competition it was a shocking try to concede.

There was much more to the game than that though. Llanelli had come to win at all costs, and if that meant lying on the ball - repeatedly, being offside - repeatedly, obstructing around rucks and mauls, and throwing in punches when the ball had gone, then that was the way they were going to win it. This was not a club match to them, this was an international test match, and they played with the intensity of a test match. Saints, basically, did not ever reach like hitting those levels, and when I can only pick out one man in a green shirt who left everything on the field (stand up Mark Robinson), then it is easy to see why Saints did not have more success going forwards.

Robin McBryde got the man of the match award, but to me wasn’t the best player on the field. Dwayne Peel came to the home of the best two scrum halves in England and had a superb game, busying himself round the fringes and helping out his more experienced number eight to get through what was by his standards a bit of a mare. Scott Quinnell had plenty of involvement, but the Saints defence, particularly Darren Fox, more than had his measure, so Quinnell decided to busy himself by being an annoyance in every other facet of play. A stronger referee may have put him in the bin in the first half for managing to get two punches and laying on the ball in the same move as the play went across the field, but it didn’t happen. As a result, some of the clashes at the fringes were questionable to say the least - both ways - and with the game becoming niggly, the life was strangled out of the Saints.

I didn’t know much about the referee, Donal Courtney, before the game, but a knowledgeable man told me about an hour before kick off that despite being an IRB referee, he probably wasn’t strong enough for a game like this. My God how he proved it. Once again I’ve come away from the Gardens questioning some of the decisions and thinking that we’ve been robbed - not that they affected the match result, but it did seem that they were more than one-sided. Indeed, one of the Scarlets supporters nearby thought that they should have had more decisions given in their favour. When will the ERC realise that for games like this, they need their best referees covering them? There’s no point in appointing them if they’re not up to the job, and quite frankly, this man wasn’t.

Saints. Do I have to talk about them? Sharky was magnificent again, but as I said, seemed to be the only one that I could pull out and say that they left everything about themselves on the pitch. I’m not going to mention individual players in bad terms, because it’s totally counterproductive, but we saw who were having the mares, and it was, unfortunately, players that we wouldn’t expect it from. The scrum, with a three stone weight disadvantage, was always going to be under pressure, and coped reasonably well without really filling you with confidence that the platform was there to base attacking movement from.

The lineout therefore had to be spot on the money. It wasn’t. Too often Matt Lord and Mark Connors were finding scarlet shirts all over them like a rash, and with them not coming close to winning Llanelli ball on their throw (17 out of 17, a fantastic effort), it meant that any hope of attacking from there was gone.

A friend commented to me on the way home that as regarding his tactical kicking in the first half, Grays had probably his worst game in a Saints shirt. A sweeping statement, and not strictly true, but it is fair to say that it looked at times like he was finding it difficult to come to terms with the wind, and who knows what platform Saints may have had had his two missed penalties gone over.

So, the expense, effort, and enjoyment of Agen is wasted. Sounds stupid, but I’d rather have lost last week, won today, and still gone out, because as much as last week was unexpected, this sort of performance was sadly expected. And dreaded. There’s only one way that Saints can now make up for this disappointment, and that’s to win the championship. Using last week as an indicator, it can be done. Using this week, Rotherham must be licking their lips…

Good luck to the Llanelli team in the quarter final, even though we all have a soft spot for our friends from Biarritz after the fun we’ve had there in recent years. I can’t bring myself to say good luck to the supporters though, because some of the behaviour in D Block today (and I understand the one particular idiot with the flag who was taunting us also had a go at C Block) was overstepping the mark big style. I’m not sorry that I won’t be seeing them again.

I don’t think I can write much more, I’m too disappointed. I remember a conversation on the way back from last season’s Powergen Cup final about why Saints kept losing the big ones, and I offered up the argument that if we kept losing them, then something was either wrong with the playing staff or the coaching, not in a way that we weren’t beaten by the better team - on all three of the biggest games in recent seasons (Irish, Gloucester, and now today) we’ve been beaten by a team fully deserving of victory - but in the way that the team seems to struggle to reach the heights when the pressure is on and there is a big Saintly following. Well, it’s happened again. I don’t know what the answer is, but if this side are to bring success before it gets broken up, then there are some parties going to prepare for a league game tomorrow who need to look at themselves and ask - am I the one to blame?

Copyright 2004 COYSDC Ltd