SUPER SHANE SMACKSDOWN SILLY SAUSAGE SAINTS

By Rob Richmond
December 1 2005

So, you've had the funny report, you've had the frustrated report, here comes the rant. And if you don't like it, deal with it.

Saturday afternoon brings a visit from some more old friends to Franklin's Gardens. Yes, Worcester Warriors arrived at the FG. This time last year they relieved the Saints of the much maligned Alan Solomans. This year they return with 4 former Saints on their books and 3 in the 22. None more so that little Shane Drahm, former saviour of the Saints on so many occasions last season, the slayer of Toulouse, the master of the madjet disaster, the sultan of swatt, the boot that sent the Quins down the chute. Yes, him, one of the 16 players told, 'you've no future here', 'have you thought about a career in carpet sales', or ' sorry son, we prefer the other one'. Well, not being one for disappointments, off little Shane did go. And to be honest, who could blame him?

Look at it from his perspective, despite coming to Franklin's Gardens on the crest of a wave and steering the Saints to the dizzy heights of the top 4 in the table during the opening stanza of the 03/04 season (some readers may recall there being a few blokes missing on some sort of late holiday for the opening months of the season, they were in Oz, dunno what they were doing, probably fishing with Rex Hunt) Shane found himself relegated to the bench.

This despite the fact that Shane was in the form of his life, was playing flat and making even the lumbering, allergic to passing, John Leslie look a tidy player, had a metronomic boot, so much so that no one dared give the saints a penalty within 5 metres either side of the halfway line, and was learning the kicking game quicker than any other southern hemisphere fly half recruited to the premiership. No, a pat on the back and seat next to Danny and Brett on the subs bench was his reward, "did you bring any jelly babies Shane?" asked Brett Sturgess, "no" replied Shane, "oh, well what about a cushion? you don't want any splinters do you!"

The following season and Shane is up for renewal, along with plenty of others, Shane though is playing almost every week. Though, not terrifically well it has to be said. Now, as most sensible Saints supporters found out at the time Shane is a confidence player. When he's feeling good and playing good, he puffs out his chest, he has a swagger and he can often win games on his own. This however, was not the player we saw before us. He lacked zip, had what some of his more derogatory observers referred to as an "attitude problem". Everything was his fault apparently, and some of the Coys more recent doubting Thomas' were right at the front of the queue to tell him so.

"Play Bruce at ten" came the cry from the disgruntled moon on the stick brigade. Solly, being a man of the people, and a regular lurker on the Coys message board, read it, though about it, grinned an grin of a man who just farted in a lift full of people, and put the idea into practise. Did it work? Well, if the idea was to get rid of Shane it did!

Anyway, Shane-o has returned to us, playing and performing the way many of his biggest fans remember and the way that his biggest detractors feared the most. Now, before its taken the wrong way by some nefarious gentlemen who despite being Saints supporters certainly don't have the patience of one, you were wrong about him. No, I won't take that back, stand up and admit it. I'll think better of you if you did.

He made the Saints pay big time today as played opposite one of the best fly halves ever to play the game and kicked his team to death. Mind you, when you're playing a pack that has the power to destroy planets you can pretty much do as you please! All you've got to do is pin Saints back in their own

22 and lean on the them, they'll topple over like dominoes. Right? right?

well, erm no.

So from the kick off the Warriors looked to impose their size advantage and surprisingly, spread it wide a bit. From the opening phases of play Worcester looked to push the ball wide to a wider channel than we've previously seen them operate in. Rather than use their big forwards looking for pop balls from Gommersal off the sides of rucks or even drop off passes from Drahm into a big fowards mitts bursting towards little Rhodri, (Who is absolutely tiny, but punches well above his weight) Wuss instead pushed the ball past the defenders into open field. Unfortunately Danny Richmond found himself having to cover 15 meters of space rather than the usual 5 and was unable to put a finger on Thomas Lombard as he pushed through the gain line and put Shane through for the opening score of the game. To rub salt into the wound, Drahm plonked over an absolute beaut of a conversion from the tight touchline.

Seven nil to the visitors, Back at them boys!!!

Once again the Warriors looked to use a wider channel and exploit Lombard's ability to outpace legendary sprinters like Damo Browne and Chris Budgen.

Fortunately as Lombard passed inside to Havilli he was inexplicably stuck down with the disease of many a Frenchman, yep, forward-pass-iosis. The most simple pass, simply mucked up good 'un proper. Had he not been stricken with this ailment the game would surely of been all over. Done and dusted, 10 minutes into the game.

Saints, being the kind hosts that they are, duly gave away a daft penalty from the next scrum. 10 nil and the FG is as quiet as a van of deaf mutes on the way to sign language convention.

Finally the Saints forward found some possession and sent big damo on a drive through the middle followed by little Rodders stepping out of challenges and over the gain line deep into the oppositions 22. The breakdown offered two things, the first being an easy 3 for Bruce and the second referee Barnes the opportunity to show everyone he was the gaffer and send Tony Windo for a ten minute break for the most cynical of ball killing offences. Sadly Mr Barnes had neither the backbone nor the gumption to do the right thing. It was the right thing for the Saints, yes, but it also offered a pre-cursor to the way the game would be bossed. Instead of a controlled performance both teams took this incident as the opportunity to pretty much do as they please at the breakdown and leave themselves in the fate of whatever Mr Barnes chose to spot. The Saints pack, not the most streetwise collection of hombre's at the best of times and far too fond of not releasing or holding or not rolling away or playing the ball on the floor or playing the ball from the side of a ruck, now found themselves at the whim of a madman with a whistle!

Now, that may be harsh to some and though I've recently been critical of refs its never my intention to belittle them and I'm fully aware we cant have a game without them. But personally I feel that when the Saints and Warriors coaching staff are bending the ear of the 4th official every 15 seconds then something is wrong. Mr Barnes had aura of former football ref David Elleary, "you're wrong!' "why?" "because I've a whistle and notebook that says so!" He seemed to treat the players like naughty children and threaten them with detention and taking away their Yoyo's.

More of our mate Mr Barnes in a moment, back to the game.

The sleeping Giants of Northampton were now awoken and pretty peed off. But at least we had a game now, whether it was a home game is debatable as the lary Wuss fans sung the Saints to a cinder. Poor old Tink and Billyboy try their hearts out but they're fighting a losing battle as too many Saints supporters concern themselves with trips to the toilets, the bar or to get something unpleasant to nosh on. No, when things are tight and the team are in a fight too many of 12000 simply don't want to know. Its a good job that Ben Lewitt and Foxy do though as they started to pressurize the Wuss back row into coughing up ball and forcing the Saints towards the Wuss 22.

Kai Horstman, who unfortunately has the chavvy-est sounding name outside of Staines, was eventually caught out by referee Barnes and was sent for a early cup tea after deciding it would be a great idea to try and sit on top of Chris Budgen and dig a tunnel to China using the ball as some kind of rudimentary spade. A cup of tea well earned by Council workers standards...

Carlos put the ball in the corner and the pack did the business, pushing down the short side and sending over Foxy for the try. Bruce converted it and made the score 10-13 to Worcester. A good comeback and some good work from the pack who were standing up to the big Wuss pack, made easier by Hortstmans dismissal. He was soon joined by Drew Hickey whose cynical play at the breakdown, a sin he was guilty of all afternoon. As was Seamus Mallon apparently, who also found himself in the bin for the crime of persistently being offside, 40 yards from play, interfering with no one admittedly but stopping Drahm from spinning a long pass wide. It would have had to have been one hell of a pass mind...

Penalties were swapped and Half time came around with a score of 13 to Northampton, 16 to Worcester.

As the second half started Worcester found themselves on the precipice of another score but Le Roux was unable to get Thinus Delport to pass to him despite some kind of Gallic hissy fit. Delport was tackled into touch by Danny Boy who freely admitted to me later on that Delport was still in field and the linesman had made a balls of it. Sorry Worcester we got away with one, but hey, you still won didn't you! The Saints gave away the obligatory penalty which Drahm missed. Northampton blew a sigh of relief and counted that they had more men than Worcester and set about putting the season and the game back on track.

Carlos came alive and so did the crowd as he and young apprentice Rodders started to open up the Worcester defensive line as the ran at forwards who struggled to keep pace as the little 'uns rounded them and looked to break into the 22. Clarkie then got in on the act as he stepped and jinked over the gainline to give the move more impetus and as Ben Lewitt found himself with Rodders outside him and one man to beat, he gave a pass to send the little Welshman over for his third try in a month. The pass was so delicious it must be fattening.

Bruce missed the conversion but the Saints could smell blood. If only they could find some killer instinct to put Wuss to bed.

Its at this point in the game I noticed as one of the many, many scrums packed down today what an absolutely massive swede Te vita Taumeopeau has. My god its like a planetoid, it must have its own weather system its that big.

Its like an orange on a tooth pick. I may have gone to far there, I don't want him to cry himself to sleep on a massive pillow....

The next 20 minutes of the game were indicative of the Saints and the way things seem to be going in my opinion. We were sloppy, scrappy and breezing through the game. Things were cushy, we were lackadaisical in our kicking out of hand all day, we never put it in behind once and things upfront were slowly going to pot. The Saints have a weak lineout we all know that. Some times its a dodgy throw, sometimes a dodgy lift, sometimes the jumper is compelled to go for the ball with one hand, sometimes its good play from the opposition and sometimes its bad tactics. We won some good ball throughout the game but not consistently and tactically we played into the hands of Craig Gillies.

Craig Gillies is something of a lineout mastermind. A member of the same Bath youth team as Chris Horsman, he found his way to the first team blocked by two young fellas named Alex Brown and Steve Borthwick. He packed up his kit, went to Uni and suddenly found himself in the Richmond first team. He's had some ups and downs along the way since then but his game has stayed resolutely at the highest level. Why he doesn't get any joy at international level is something which is a great concern to our friends at Worcester, but the reason, they may not like... put simply, along with Tom Palmer and Nick Kennedy these three second rows are clearly the most consistent in the premiership, but they play for very unfashionable clubs, clubs which play a certain kind of rugby, which isn't conducive to the way England want to play. Confused? England are snobs and are more concerned with players from clubs who are on Sky every other week but basically play rugby exactly the same way as Leeds, Wuss or Irish. A case of double standards? You betcha!

 

It was a proud day for me and mine as Danny made his one hundredth first team appearance for Northampton. Quite an achievement considering he's mainly sat on his bot bot getting splinters over the last 6 years. Fair play to him though, even though he's got a England world cup winner, a British lion and a local lad skipper in front of him, he keeps plugging away. Danny has recently been the pack leader and despite the losses he's done his best to galvanize the pack and you can say what you like, they don't give in to anyone. This is the one thing that aggravates me the most about Coys regulars and also from posters who only seem to post when they have a gripe or to slaughter someone about something that only they've seen.

Yet they can't see the little things that make a big difference from last year. Everyone is playing with their heads up, not something we could say last year, many was the time I saw players ( some still here, some gone) who had given in after 25 minutes. They were going through the motions, simply playing from set piece to set piece, lurking on the wings or at the sides of rucks, yelling "gwan sharky! get that ball!" OK, admittedly that's still going on from time to time, but not as often as in the past.

Northampton had the game by the balls but were the situation reminded me of the famous scene from Marathon Man, the Saintly Dustin Hoffman wriggles and fights as he's strapped into a dentists chair and is tormented by the evil Lawrence Olivier, who reeks of Worcestershire sauce, who keeps poking at the nerves of the Saints with 3 pointers asking constantly, "Is it safe? are the 4 points safe?"

Hoffman bravely fights on but is blissfully unaware of what the demented dentist Drahm is asking. With 10 minutes left Northampton and Worcester found themselves in a stalemate, with a point the difference neither side were willing to chance their arm and go for a win, a kicking duel for field position began which eventually came to an end as Northampton, desperate for field position and short on time looked to Ben Cohen and Carlos for some inspiration. Saints were never short on perspiration all day. Budges charges don't know how to quit, but they don't seem to to know how to get the win either.

Pushing hard from inside the Worcester 22 the Saints fought hard and pushed Kai Horstman to the point of further recrimination as he received a second yellow and then a red for a cynical infringement which led to the Saints being given a chance to seal a win that in truth they deserved, but sadly for Bruce and his boys, didn't get.

Bruce pushed a tough penalty wide of the posts and the ref blew up for full time.

THE AFTERMATH

Saints and the Warriors both had to contend with some really really strange decisions from a ref who I've no doubt knows the rules and how to do his job but seemed a little out of his depth. Now, I don't doubt his ability but seeing as how both teams seem to have been on the end of weird ones I'll put it down to experience. How is Mr Barnes going to improve unless he's given the opportunity to referee at the highest level? No ref is perfect, the game today was almost unreffable at times, I hope Mr Barnes sees the error of his ways, one thing is for sure time is on his side.

The problems for the Saints seem squarely off the field. The lack of discipline that lead to the winning score is indicative of the discipline that Budge and Grays can't really offer off the field. The reason may well not be because of their abilities as coaches; perhaps that they're too close to the players.

Now, whilst we may get calls for the heads of Budge and Grays may I repeat my previous calls for calm? We've lost 4 of the last 5 by less than 5 points, and came mightily close to winning ever single one of them. The Saints are struggling with one of the major X factors of rugby, lack of luck. All teams, good and bad need a little bit of it and for the moment we've misplaced ours.