Bath v Saints Match Preview

By Barfly
September 9 2005

This weekend sees a crucial sporting event take place. Crucial because it signifies what the immediate future may hold for the members of the team. Crucial, because for the losers comes not just disappointment, but the realisation for the support that the promised era of success was just a pipedream.

 

 

Yes, for five days this weekend the atmosphere at the Oval will be filled with immense trepidation and nerve-shredding intensity.

 

But if you leave Kennington, head over Vauxhall Bridge and up to Hyde Park Corner, turn left and keep going for 2½ hours or so, you’ll find a city centre park filled with as much tension and apprehension as anything in south London.

 

There two sides come up against each other, both looking to erase the memory of a bitterly disappointing first round of the Guinness Premiership. For hosts Bath it will mean expunging the one-point defeat to newly promoted neighbours Bristol. Saints, on the other hand, have to overcome the 32-nil hammering suffered at the hands of a rejuvenated Leicester.

 

The wake of this result has brought much hand wringing amongst the Saintly faithful, prompting in my mind the following question.

 

Is it, one solitary match into the new Premiership season, too early to be calling the state of affairs at Franklin’s Gardens a crisis?

 

Well yes and no. I could trot out the old clichés of ’15 new faces in the squad’, ‘marathon not a sprint’, ‘takes time to gel’, but then you’d start accusing me of swallowing the party line, hook, line and sinker.

 

In my blog this week, which you may have read, I drew a comparison between the Saints and Newcastle United. Once again the parallels are there as the 2005/06 season gathers pace – no points on the table, less on the scoreboard, and nerves a’twitching amongst the supporters, some of whom are questioning the ability of those in charge.

 

The emotions of the end of last term are still raw for many of us, and the doomsayers are already calling this time around as being nothing but a repetition. However, with the exception of the post-match comments from Leicester, the noises from the coaching staff have been insightful and realistic, and some of the play, particularly in Ireland, showed the potential of what this side can do when it clicks.

 

Nevertheless, with the greatest of respect to Treviso, Munster and Leinster our pre-season programme was never going to prepare the newcomers to the Premiership of the atmosphere at a packed Welford Road on opening day. Likewise with the Recreation Ground, albeit for a different reason – their changing rooms are possibly the worst any of our players will have experienced in Europe.

 

I don’t believe that we’re in crisis, and I don’t believe that the second weekend in September is the time to be calling for changes amongst management. At least because they’ve made changes – although maybe not all the ones we were calling for at the start of the week – by bringing in Sean Lamont for his first Saints start and recalling Mark Soden into the back row. And there’s some young thing on the bench by the name of Thompson, whose future, I hear, is bright, if not orange. Not least because it would clash with the pink shirts sold in his shop…

 

Alex Rae has dropped to the bench as back-five cover, and with Soden having moved to the second row for the last half-hour at Kingston Park on Monday night, there are plenty of permutations for the coaches to play with. Johnny Howard and John Rudd are also on the bench, surprising given Ben Jones and Paul Diggin’s starts to the season.

 

Northampton Saints:

 

Bruce Reihana (capt)

Sean Lamont

Jon Clarke

Seamus Mallon

Ben Cohen

Carlos Spencer

Mark Robinson

Tom Smith

Dylan Hartley

Brett Sturgess

Matt Lord

Damien Browne

Mark Soden

Darren Fox

Daniel Browne

 

Replacements:

 

Steve Thompson

Chris Budgen

Alex Rae

Ben Lewitt

Johnny Howard

Rhodri Davies

John Rudd

 

It is a second chance for Jon Clarke in the centre, his best position, according to the coaching staff. Similarly for Ben Cohen, who, after having been portrayed by one person in particular as showing the benefits of a summer away from the game, had his worst outing in quite some while against the Tigers.

 

For all the individual finger pointing, it is really a second chance for the whole 22, as they now have to show to themselves and to us that last Saturday was an aberration. That the innate quality of the world-class players at our disposal is more than a rumour, and that there is the promise of hope for the rest of the season.

 

Already Saints are suffering a mini injury crisis, with the likes of David Quinlan, Selborne Boome and Brett McNamee out of action. Bath too have a number of injuries. Forwards David Flatman and Peter Short (a 6’5”, 18 stone backrower signed this summer from Narbonne) are out of contention for this match, as are backs Joe Maddock and Lee Best – both injured at Bristol – joining Alex Crockett, David Bory and Michael Stephenson on the list of the walking wounded.

 

Nevertheless – though at the time of writing the final 22 hadn’t been named – John Connolly still has internationals aplenty to choose from, including Matt Perry, Olly Barkley, Martyn Wood, Matt Stevens, Steve Borthwick and Danny Grewcock. Needless to say, he will have them wound up and ready to go like the Duracell bunny.

 

It doesn’t take a genius to predict that Bath will come at us up front, aiming to keep the ball away from our backline, either by reducing turnovers to a minimum or winning as much of out set-piece ball as possible. In response our pack will not just need a good collective performance – it will have to be an immense, monumental effort. Otherwise I see the result going only one way.

 

But I don’t. I just think that we will play a controlled game of our own, where the ball is kept moving so that there is no one place for their pack to assemble and demolish us. Call me a master of delusion, but I have a nagging feeling we’ll come out of Saturday alright.

 

In wrapping up, once more I turn to parallels. Last season we were well beaten by Bath a week after the Heineken Cup quarter final in Toulouse. This time around we travel to the Recreation Ground having received a similar pummelling by one of the best sides in Europe. But whereas then expectation of a decent performance and result was rooted more in hope than reality, something similar this time will draw the ire of all connected with the club.

 

Still, at least it can’t get any worse. Can it?