Saints Suffer Boxing Day Sale

Dickens of a Job
By Simon Robinson
December 27 2005

Forgive me a seasonal departure from the usual form of match reporting, but I feel the more prosaic style may well warm you on these colder nights.

“A trip to Sale, on Boxing Day? Humbug.” said Eifion Scrooge. “You know we’ve never won at Edgeley Park, there’s only one other current Premiership ground with a similar hoodoo – the Causeway. The injury list is preposterous – no Cohen, no Spencer, no Thompson. Not a chance.”

 

“But Eifion, the team has been building up to a class performance for months. Take the two wins against Narbonne, and before that the solid, if ultimately losing, performance against Leicester in the Cup.” This reply, from a gentleman wearing black, green and gold, fell on deaf ears. “Will you not join us in the trip North to watch the Saints play, this very Monday?” The only reply was a muttered “Humbug.”

 

Mr Scrooge was that night visited by three spirits – the Spirit of Jimmies Past, a stocky gentleman who tends the grounds now, the Spirit of Jimmies Present, an antipodean fellow resplendent in his multicoloured headwear, and the Spirit of Jimmies future, now but a child but soon to become a great player.

 

These spirits tried to show Eifion the error of his ways, that the route to a successful team can contain experienced foreign players to aid the development of youngsters, and signing these stars is helping gain media coverage for the club, increasing interest from both supporters and future players. These spirits also tried to convince Scrooge that sometimes, maybe, if he could possibly come out with an occasional positive comment it might just help.

 

Scrooge awoke with a start. He called out to a young lad in the street: “Young man, what day is it today?” The child replied: “Why, it’s Boxing Day sir.” Scrooge returned to his room, muttering “I won’t bother going, they’ll only lose.”

 

Lose they did, but not as badly as some were predicting. A young Saints team more than showed their potential against an experienced Sale side. The early loss of prop Mr Barnard was disheartening, but Mr Budgen was a more than adequate replacement. In the spirit of the season, an early Reihana penalty was sliced to enable the locals to build up a 14 – 0 lead, three Hodgson penalties sandwiching an unconverted Chris Mayor try.

 

Saints decided eighteen minutes was more than enough, and Tiny Tim himself, aka Paul Diggin, ran single-handedly through the Sale defence and Saints contented themselves with a Brucie penalty from this move, 14 – 3. Another penalty three minutes later took a rebound off the upright and was knocked on by a Sale player under the posts, however the visitors could not capitalise on this seasonal gift.

 

Pressure from the move resulted in a push being held up over the line, not a nice thing to do when someone visits you over yuletide, but Saints were awarded a penalty by that nice Mr Pearson in charge, and Mr Reihana dispatched it forthwith, 14 – 6 and still a quarter of an hour left before the half.

 

Again the Saints generosity gave Mr Hodgson another three points, and Bruce obviously felt they deserved their lead a he purposefully (of course) missed a kick from just inside the opposition half. Sale centre Robert Todd felt it too long to wait for his half an orange, so killed the ball and got a yellow card. That nice Mr Reihana kicked the points and half time was 17 – 9.

 

Whereas Saints had been dominating the end of the first half, a refreshed Sale team put the visitors under pressure from the restart, and it paid dividends inside ten minutes, with Damien Browne in the bin his opposite number Ignacio Fernandez Lobbe put the ball down over the whitewash; Hodgson added the conversion and the home lead was now 24 – 9.

 

Jut before the hour mark, after Dylan Hartley replaced Mr Daniel Richmond, Luke “sponsored by comeonyousaints.com” Myring scored a corker of a try, however Reihana again hit the upright with the conversion. Minutes later, Hodgson restored a 13 point gap with a simple penalty. 27 – 13 and Messrs Fox and Howard were replaced by Harding and Robinson.

 

Sale’s general dominance started to show in the latter stages, a pushover try for substitute Sebastien Bruno, again converted by the reliable Hodgson, left Saints 34 – 14 adrift. The additions of Easter, Rae and Vilk (for Lewitt, Lord and Davies) did nothing to close the deficit, although a period of sustained pressure was to no avail at the death.

 

Many positives are to come from this festive game. The backs, although shorn of the likes of Cohen, Lamont and Spencer, performed admirably, Mr Diggin especially. The forwards coped well with the early loss of Barnard, but the scoreline demonstrated which end of the table the respective teams were.