Ambitious Dragons Beaten At The Gardens

The game started with promise, Bruce's run down the

wing after five minutes showing the pace of the Saints

back line. Newport were first on the board with a

penalty from Ceri Sweeney after ten minutes. Shane

Drahm had a chance to reply 11 minutes later but the

kick went inches wide of the right post. Saints broke

through the Newport defence five minutes later but Ben

Cohen knocked on in a tackle on the 22. This did,

however, seem to wake the crowd up, who had been

strangely quiet previously. Perhaps the

underperforming forward play had knocked them back.

On 34 minutes a break from Stcherbina, through

Robinson, Drahm and finally captain Wally was turned

over in the Newport half. However, a fluffed Newport

clearance, charged down, rebounded off the crossbar

into the hands of Stitch who ran in his debut try.

Drahm kicked the conversion to leave the Saints 7 - 3

up. Two minutes later a run from Human was passed

inside to Cohen who steamed in for another try, Drahm

converting. A Newport penalty late in injury time left

the half time score 14 - 6 to the Saints.

After an entertaining half time performance from

Bernie and the Dragons mascot in front of the South

Stand, the teams returned to the field. James Ross,

John Clarke and John Rudd were on for Brett Sturgess,

Ben Cohen and Wylie Human. Damien Browne was going

from strength to strength in the first half, and got

stuck in just after half time with a bit of "handbags"

with one of the Newport players. John Rudd was on the

scoreboard not long afterwards as the Saints gained 

good possession from a rolling maul on the Newport 22.

Drahm added the extras to put Saints 21 - 6 up after

50 minutes.

Barely two minutes later, Saints were 28 - 6 up, after

a superb joint effort between Bruce Reihana and John

Clarke from their own 22 with Mr Drahm kicking 

the conversion again. This was beginning to look like

fun. Just before the hour mark, Saints made three more

changes: Chris Hyndman for Stcherbina, Robbie Kempson

for Morris and Mark Soden for Grant Seely. This added

more muscle to the improving Saints eight, which bodes

well for the season, especially as we have yet to see

Selbourne Boome and Corne Krige.

On the hour, Bruce Reihana sent the right winger away

in a similar way to the run with the left winger

minutes earlier. This time, however, he started on his

own try line, handing over to Rudd near halfway, who

then gassed the Newport defence to score in the

corner. Drahm kicked a difficult conversion to leave

it 35 - 6 with twenty minutes to go.

Drahm's kicking out of hand seemed to improve during

the game, after several disappointing attempts at

touch kicks in the first half he nailed one on 63

minutes. Johnny Howard came on for Mark Robinson on 64

minutes, followed a few minutes later by Wylie Human

returning for Bruce, John Clarke moving to full 

back. ED O'Donaghue's debut followed moments later as

a hard working Rob Hunter left the field. 

A late try from Newport left the score 35 - 11 (the

conversion was missed from wide out). All in all, a

good match to see the new Saints perform, with 

Stcherbina and Human standing out. Hopefully, on this

performance, Saints will play up a bit more this

season. Oh yeah, and I've finally written a report on

a winning match! After four poor performances,

including one of only three losses at the Gardens last

season, I've finally broken the jinx. All this, and 

without any announcements from the Tetley's Stand either!