Lucky 25 Again? Tigers v Saints Preview

Reality bit big style last weekend, but now history beckons Saints; the club have never won in three consecutive seasons at Welford Road, although Saints were unbeaten there for seven years during the 1950s. Twice during that run Saints were on the verge of completing the hat-trick, only to be denied by a 9-all draw in 1956/57, and a 6-all draw in 1959-60. It was to be 1961-62 before Tigers finally defeated Saints at home again, a 5-0 win ending the record of possibly the best team in Saints’ history. During that seven year run, there was only one Saints defeat at home as well; it was almost total domination.

Main threat on Saturday for Saints has to be the only man who could complete the hat-trick and be on the field for every minute of all three games. Of the players that have worn the gold away shirts over the previous two seasons, only Bruce Reihana has started both victories and is starting on Saturday. On the bench, Dan Richmond, Matt Lord, and Andrew Blowers all could feature in their third successive win. For Tigers, Harry Ellis, Ollie Smith, Graham Rowntree, George Chuter, James Buckland, Will Johnson, and Little Thatched Austin could all play in a third consecutive defeat.

In reality, that’s getting a bit ahead of ourselves. Tigers have been like a runaway train since the departure of Dean Richards in February; one defeat at Sale on the opening weekend of the season, a draw at Newcastle back in April, and the rest have been victories, and in the main, convincing ones at that. Over the same period, Saints have lost to Wasps twice and Gloucester. One of the more interesting aspects of the Tigers team over this period has been the influence from their fly-half position. Jaco van der Westhuyzen transformed their backline over the second half of last season, and despite now playing in Japan, will be a great signing when he rejoins the club in 2006. The South African allowed Andy Goode to drop to full back, and play possibly the best rugby of his career. Moving back to fly half for the start of this season, he’s already the top points scorer in the Premiership.

Now though, Goode is out with a cruciate injury and John Wells is forced to call on teenager Ross Broadfoot to fill Goode’s shirt. Many experts last season thought that the lack of a fly half in the opening weeks cost Tigers, as they experimented with Ramiro Pez, now back at Rotherham, and Austin Healey in the position. Will history repeat itself this time around?

We have to take into account, of course, that the Tigers pack is considerably stronger than for most of last season; Martin Johnson, as well as enjoying a testimonial season and donating a signed shirt to Saints With Heart 3, is on his farewell season in English rugby, and would like nothing better than a final home victory over the old enemy. The lineout will once again be key for Saints, and it could be a case of the old joke from two seasons ago, that game that broke the 57 game run; if Wally aims for Johnson and Kay in the lineout, as he did at that point for England, then Saints will get plenty of ball.

Elsewhere in the Tigers side, Geordan Murphy looks fully fit again after the broken leg of last year, and is always a class act, whilst Daryl Gibson, as Henry Paul did last week, will test Mark Tucker in the centre. Harry Ellis now looks closer to an England call after Matt Dawson’s opting out of the squad, something that will please a friend of mine who’s watched him and his brother from their days at Lutterworth RFC.

All in all, it’s another strong team, and Tigers look like fulfilling a lot of pre-season predictions (including mine) that they will be there and thereabouts at the end of the season.

Right, onto Saints. It’s been a difficult week for Alan Solomons. The early loss of Paul Grayson with a broken hand last Saturday undoubtedly had an effect of last Saturday’s result, and the absence of him, plus a battered Andrew Blowers, will be a blow this weekend.

Err…but then Shane Drahm was the second highest points scorer in the Premiership last season, and Darren Fox was Saints’ top tackler, so the replacements are not that bad! On the bench, John Clarke comes in as cover for Drahm, with the plan no doubt to be to move Reihana to fly-half if anything goes wrong there and Clarke come on at full back. Elsewhere, it’s an unchanged side.

November 30^th 2002 can’t not be mentioned at this point. 57 Premiership games unbeaten went down the pan after tries from Budge Pountney, Ian Vass, and Chris Hyndman, and 10 points from the boot of Paul Grayson brought about a 25-12 win in front of the Sky cameras and caused at least one video in every rugby loving household in Northampton to have its tab removed to ensure that the tape wasn’t taped over.

October 25^th 2003, and despite the protestations of the Tigers supporters on the Crumblie (sic) that all of their players past and present were at the World Cup, two Reihana tries topped and tailed the game that featured Nick Beal dropping a goal from the queue at the Captain’s Bar. A friend hold this game as one of his favourite memories, every point that Saints won by being worth £5 to him in a spread bet. He enjoyed Bruce’s last minute try. A lot.

The teams then, for the 2004 clash of the local rivals that reaches its 101^st season:-

Tigers

Replacements from James Buckland, Darren Morris, Louis Deacon, Will Johnson, Henry Tuilagi, Scott Bemand, Alex Tuilagi, Roger Warren, John Holtby.

Saints

15 Bruce Reihana

14 John Rudd

13 Mark Tucker

12 Marc Stcherbina

11 Ben Cohen

10 Shane Drahm

9 Johnny Howard

1 Tom Smith

2 Steve Thompson

3 Robbie Kempson

4 Selborne Boome

5 Damian Browne

6 Darren Fox

7 Corne Krige (captain)

8 Grant Seely

16 Dan Richmond

17 Chris Budgen

18 Matt Lord

19 Andrew Blowers

20 Ben Jones

21 Wylie Human

22 John Clarke

Prediction - are you joking? You don’t predict local derbies! If you want a prediction, how about that I’ll miss the bus I’d really want to catch to get back for Bomber’s birthday party? I’ll say no more than that…