Splish Splash, Saints Supreme

By Ballagher
April 19 2004

As once noted by someone who often visited and wrote about Bath, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single Bath fan of good fortune (ie. who had a ticket for the match) must be in want of a … new backline.” (Well – something like that anyway.)

A little more about the Bath fans at the foot of this report but the common consensus about their team’s performance (from those I spoke to after the game and who’ve posted on the their message board) was “Nice forwards, shame about the backs”. (OK, nobody said “shame” but it is before the watershed.)

THE FORWARDS

At least Statto solved for us one on-going debate today – it’s now clear that various members of the Blowers family are NOT being paid for secretarial duties and the like. Quite clearly there are at least three of them on the pitch. They were everywhere as exemplified by an incident 15 minutes into the second half. Saints fans’ hearts were in their mouths as Blowers was down injured on the Saints 10 metre line. Meanwhile a long kick into the Saints 22 is followed up by Martyn Wood who gets his fingertips on the resulting clearance from Beal (thus playing all the Saints team on-side). When Beal’s strike finally returns to earth (with snow on it) who is it but another member of the Kiwi Family Blowers who is hunting down the Bath clearance to touch.

Often the Blowers were accompanied by a member of the large Fox family as well. All nine forwards (Sharkey gains honorary forward status for days like these) played like their lives depended on it. Indeed, it’s worth noting that for all the undoubted qualities of the Bath front 8, their forwards could not supply their backs with more than a small handful of positions inside the Saints 22 (two of which became penalties slotted over from close range) all game.

THE SCRUMS

Considering the weather conditions, it was remarkable how few scrums there were all afternoon. On the whole neither side gained much from them. Tevita wasn’t moved an inch although Budgen conceded a couple of penalties. Bath too conceded a free-kick and a penalty.

THE LINE-OUTS

Bath’s line-out was ridiculously efficient all afternoon. All four elements (the thrower, jumpers, lifters and option calling) were finely tuned so that, even when Saints did throw up a challenger it appeared feeble.

In contrast, on the Saints throw-ins (of which there were unsurprisingly more) every ball was hotly contested. To be fair, Saints didn’t do a lot wrong. They mixed the options well (with most success throwing to Lord at the front) and the throws were usually straight and true. The only problem seemed to be that Borthwick and Fidler (together with assembled lifters) always knew where the ball was going first. Throws to Connors in the middle could only ever be tapped backwards under pressure, inevitably resulting in scrappy ball. (Some bloke called Ben in the studio on Sky who seemed to know something about it talked about the failure to get the jumpers in the air early enough. That seemed to make sense.)

Anyway, at the end of the first half, out of 15 Saints won 7 cleanly, 6 were scrappy and 2 were outright steals for Bath. On the Bath throw, 7 out of 7. Say no more.

THE BACKS

The whole match was dominated by long kicks (quite rightly given the persistent rain) with Bath understandably more eager to find touch than Saints. Reihana, Beal Grayson and Clarke were all assured in this department. For Bath, at times Malone was a little conservative and Matt Perry seemed to have bought a ticket to another world towards the end of the game but both sides played it well.

Under the high Garryowen, Air Bruce was as assured as Perry and Balshaw had been 4 years earlier in similarly treacherous conditions.

In the seventh minute of the match Maggs seemed to have created some space but his pass to Human resembled a scud missile in terms of pace and accuracy. Wylie (being only human) couldn’t intercept it and the chance went begging. What we didn’t realise then was that this was probably Bath’s best chance all afternoon.

Mid-way through the first half, Saints showed signs of capitalising on the little possession that they secured in the Bath half of the field. A cross-field kick from Grayson was collected by Beal and, from the ensuing ruck, Saints gained a kickable penalty when Beattie killed the ball. Two minutes later, a Grayson dink over the onrushing defence almost found Dawson in space but he couldn’t quite get there and knocked on.

Place kicking was difficult and at half time Bath led 6-3 with Malone converting two penalties in front of the posts (his only miss was a very ambitious early shot from inside his own half). Grayson slotted one from two – both being from midway between the posts and the right-hand touchline.

In the second half Bath scored no points at all and, to be honest, were a bit lucky to get none. An early penalty attempt from 40 yards plus the angle out (when Tevita went off his feet at a ruck) was the closest they came. This would have restored the Bath lead which had disappeared after Grayson converted a penalty 3 minutes earlier (ironically when Connors was pushed in the air in a line-out).

If you have the match on tape but only have time to watch 10 minutes then you need to fast forward to about the 10th minute of the second half. Bath have just replaced en masse (coincidence?) Humphreys, Bell and Fidler with Mears, Stevens and Grewcock. A reasonable position for Bath breaks down when the ball goes loose from the Saints’ 22. One of the Blowers (I think it was Andy this time) pounced on the ball which was fed back to Sharkey and quickly on to Bruce. For a moment he shaped to kick but then threw the ball out to Cohen who advanced and drew his opposite number before releasing Jon Clarke (who, though wearing the 14 jersey, played almost exclusively on the left wing). Clarkey stepped inside Crockett (who lost his footing) and hitch-kicked out of the attempted tap-tackle by Stevens. Still with half the length of the pitch to go it was a clear run-in, ending with a jubilant splash as he scored under the posts. 3 minutes later was the aforementioned Blowers appearance at both ends of the field seemingly at once. Then to cap off 10 minutes that young Jon Clarke will want to bottle and save for unhappier times, he was tested with a cross-field kick which he skilfully marked before launching an exorcet into the other half – the ball helpfully bouncing a foot in from the touchline and bang on the Bath 22.

As is often the way, Saints’ confidence grew as Bath’s waned. 5 minutes later, a better pass from Dawson (who had a fine outing at inside centre) to Cohen could have seen Clarkey in again. With 5 minutes of normal time remaining, good work from first Grayson and Dawson, then from Reihana and Clarke very nearly saw Cohen over in the left hand corner but he spilled the ball forward in the tackle.

Barkley had replaced Malone (possibly a little too late) and although he kicked well there was a spate of three successive occasions near the end where he dropped the ball forward - which pretty well summed up the backs’ performance.

The final nail came when Scaysbrook came into a ruck from the side, thus allowing Grayson to kick Saints 10 in front and denying Bath what could be a crucial bonus point.

THE FANS

As promised, a word about the fans. Saints were increasingly vociferous (twas always thus) but set the culture well by remaining quiet for the first kick at goal (tisn’t always thus but nice all the same). Bath arrived in greater numbers than has been suggested they might and were (speaking from my own experience) perfectly fine. So well played to both their players and their supporters. (And I’m not just saying that because I’m hoping for a ticket in the near future.)

Nonetheless, if Wasps are sincere in wanting to finish top of the table, we may well be playing Bath again in a few weeks time to decide who go to Twickenham. I’m already looking forward to it.



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