Well despite the early doubts after that loss at Bath a fortnight ago the Saints finally look like they are getting into their stride this season. The victory over Wasps at the Gardens was followed up by a somewhat comprehensive five try, bonus point win over Zurich new boys Rotherham.
Although there was some discontent of the ease of victory and quality (or not) of the opposition by some supporters at the end of the day the Saints can only beat what has been put in front of them. Smudger put it down as the best performance so far this term and it was pleasing once again to see some of those youngsters in the team seize their chance with both hands. The win shoots the Saints up to third, still in touch with surprise leaders Bath who have proved themselves anything but ‘The Shower’ most, including myself, predicted, before season start. Buts the ZP is a marathon not a sprint and after four games Saints are sitting pretty behind the leaders. The Saintly campaign is starting to shape up well.
LOOKING AHEAD
If the Saints have had a bogey side over the last few years it has to be Saturdays visitors London Irish. I’m sure quite a few of you remember that wet Tuesday night in January 1999 when the Saints who had been flying just needed the win against lowly Irish to top the table for the first time several seasons. In a monsoon the Irish walked it with Niall Woods scoring four tries to send the Gardens faithful home in silence.
I know people who still have nightmares (especially my two friends the spread betters) about that Powergen Cup Final. Then came last seasons Gardens clash, a clash in the true sense of the word with the charming Doctor Brendan Venter playing, when Saints were caught cold and were turned over with ease. To say that the win at the Kassam in the cup semi later that season was one well owed was somewhat of an understatement as the Saints ran riot scoring some cracking tries including my pick of the season by Peter Jorgensen.
The big question is, as with any game between the two, which Saints side, and indeed which Irish side will turn up on the day. I’m taking our lads to carry on where they left off at Oxford. See you there.
GET THE SHIRT OFF HIS BACK
For a few of us it is not only the game on our minds for Saturday. It’s the day of the Saints with Heart II walk I wrote about two weeks ago. Raising money for the British Heart Foundation two groups of walkers are setting off from Wolverton and Stoke Bruerne en route to the Gardens. One supporter, known to all as Jacka, has found a novel way of raising funds. Through our friends (yes friends!!) at the Tigers website Jacka, a long time Saints member, has agreed to walk the whole distance in one of Darren Garforths shirts if the Tigers bunch can raise more sponsor money for his effort than the Saints clan can. Now despite Jacka raising around £400 so far the Tigers are edging the race by quite a distance as unfortunately everyone in Saints part of the world is already sponsoring someone else. So dear readers, this is where you lot come in. If you’re a Saint and want to prevent this tragedy happening, or indeed if you are a Tiger up there in bandit country who wants to see Jacka get his comeuppance email me at coysdc@aol.com to pledge for your cause. Remember it all goes to help a very worthwhile charity. I’ll let you all know the outcome next week. For those not pledging but going to the game we will also be doing a bucket shake inside the ground on the day so c’mon search the back of that sofa, raid the kids piggy bank and lets us have all that loose copper and silver and that dusty old fiver at the back of your wallet.
HATS OFF TO THE UNSUNG HEROES
Friday sees the start of the Rugby World Cup in Australia. Of course we wish all our lads well. Wally, Daws, Larry and Ben for England and Wee Tam for Scotland not only represent their countries but of course the club itself. How many of you have found yourselves shouting for one of our boys over the years wearing the colours of the ‘enemy’? Looking through the various pullouts in the media this week an article caught my eye about two English players being the best in their relative positions, wing and hooker, in the world. Yes our Ben and our Wally. Now quite rightly both players families and friends and all Saints supporters are proud of the pair but way up there in the pride stakes are Old Scouts rugby club. Both players learnt their trade at Scouts before moving up to the Saints and they can be rightly proud of the achievement. At a time when schools for one reason or another are giving up rugby wholesale clubs like Scouts and many of hundreds of others around the country are now the future of the game and for some kids its the only opportunity to play rugby locally. I played mini rugby in its infancy at Wolverton Rugby Club thirty years ago and the game would not have got off the ground if it was not for enthusiastic individuals giving up their time on a Sunday morning to put the games next generation through its paces. These same people today now hundreds in number carry on this coaching and coaxing for very little more than the love of the game. In their own way looking at the future of rugby they are just as important as your Clive Woodwards and Ian McGeechans. Unsung heroes maybe, but without them no new Wally or Bens on the horizon. Thanks.
WHO ATE ALL THE PIES? NOT SAINTS!
Heard the one about three Saints supporters and their wives who ordered meals in a Rotherham pub on Saturday only to see late arriving locals being fed well before them. When they enquired, most politely, why this was so the landlord threw their first meal back into the kitchen and barred all of them on the spot. Seems you can move rugby teams to footballs stadiums but you cannot educate the locals about the finer sensitivities, taste and finesse of your average rugby follower. So it’s back to the Bus Club and Weedon Road chippy on Saturday night then?
ON A HIDING TO NOTHING
I just can’t win. Last week I reported how one person accused this column of being nothing but a sycophantic praise outlet for the club. Well this week it seems I got the opposite reaction. After expressing my own personal opinion about the main bar closing after the Tigers game the column was branded ‘utter rubbish’ in one irate message to myself. I now realise in some quarters its heresy to either praise or criticise the club, silly me. But its all swings and roundabouts and sticks and stones and all that but I actually great take heart from these attacks. You see now I know I have TWO readers. One thing still worries me though, why wasn’t the column ‘utter rubbish’ in the weeks the club was praised?
CAN YOU HELP THE SCARLETS?
Finally I have been contacted by Les Williams the club historian at Llanelli who is hunting down some missing sections of the clubs past. He is looking for Saints v Scarlets programmes, all played at the Gardens, on 6/10/69, 7/12/68 and 3/12/66.
If you can help please email me at coysdc@aol.com. I would give my phone number but I’m worried my two readers might be on to me.
LOOKING AHEAD
If the Saints have had a bogey side over the last few years it has to be Saturdays visitors London Irish. I’m sure quite a few of you remember that wet Tuesday night in January 1999 when the Saints who had been flying just needed the win against lowly Irish to top the table for the first time several seasons. In a monsoon the Irish walked it with Niall Woods scoring four tries to send the Gardens faithful home in silence.
I know people who still have nightmares (especially my two friends the spread betters) about that Powergen Cup Final. Then came last seasons Gardens clash, a clash in the true sense of the word with the charming Doctor Brendan Venter playing, when Saints were caught cold and were turned over with ease. To say that the win at the Kassam in the cup semi later that season was one well owed was somewhat of an understatement as the Saints ran riot scoring some cracking tries including my pick of the season by Peter Jorgensen.
The big question is, as with any game between the two, which Saints side, and indeed which Irish side will turn up on the day. I’m taking our lads to carry on where they left off at Oxford. See you there.
GET THE SHIRT OFF HIS BACK
For a few of us it is not only the game on our minds for Saturday. It’s the day of the Saints with Heart II walk I wrote about two weeks ago. Raising money for the British Heart Foundation two groups of walkers are setting off from Wolverton and Stoke Bruerne en route to the Gardens. One supporter, known to all as Jacka, has found a novel way of raising funds. Through our friends (yes friends!!) at the Tigers website Jacka, a long time Saints member, has agreed to walk the whole distance in one of Darren Garforths shirts if the Tigers bunch can raise more sponsor money for his effort than the Saints clan can. Now despite Jacka raising around £400 so far the Tigers are edging the race by quite a distance as unfortunately everyone in Saints part of the world is already sponsoring someone else. So dear readers, this is where you lot come in. If you’re a Saint and want to prevent this tragedy happening, or indeed if you are a Tiger up there in bandit country who wants to see Jacka get his comeuppance email me at coysdc@aol.com to pledge for your cause. Remember it all goes to help a very worthwhile charity. I’ll let you all know the outcome next week. For those not pledging but going to the game we will also be doing a bucket shake inside the ground on the day so c’mon search the back of that sofa, raid the kids piggy bank and lets us have all that loose copper and silver and that dusty old fiver at the back of your wallet.
HATS OFF TO THE UNSUNG HEROES
Friday sees the start of the Rugby World Cup in Australia. Of course we wish all our lads well. Wally, Daws, Larry and Ben for England and Wee Tam for Scotland not only represent their countries but of course the club itself. How many of you have found yourselves shouting for one of our boys over the years wearing the colours of the ‘enemy’? Looking through the various pullouts in the media this week an article caught my eye about two English players being the best in their relative positions, wing and hooker, in the world. Yes our Ben and our Wally. Now quite rightly both players families and friends and all Saints supporters are proud of the pair but way up there in the pride stakes are Old Scouts rugby club. Both players learnt their trade at Scouts before moving up to the Saints and they can be rightly proud of the achievement. At a time when schools for one reason or another are giving up rugby wholesale clubs like Scouts and many of hundreds of others around the country are now the future of the game and for some kids its the only opportunity to play rugby locally. I played mini rugby in its infancy at Wolverton Rugby Club thirty years ago and the game would not have got off the ground if it was not for enthusiastic individuals giving up their time on a Sunday morning to put the games next generation through its paces. These same people today now hundreds in number carry on this coaching and coaxing for very little more than the love of the game. In their own way looking at the future of rugby they are just as important as your Clive Woodwards and Ian McGeechans. Unsung heroes maybe, but without them no new Wally or Bens on the horizon. Thanks.
WHO ATE ALL THE PIES? NOT SAINTS!
Heard the one about three Saints supporters and their wives who ordered meals in a Rotherham pub on Saturday only to see late arriving locals being fed well before them. When they enquired, most politely, why this was so the landlord threw their first meal back into the kitchen and barred all of them on the spot. Seems you can move rugby teams to footballs stadiums but you cannot educate the locals about the finer sensitivities, taste and finesse of your average rugby follower. So it’s back to the Bus Club and Weedon Road chippy on Saturday night then?
ON A HIDING TO NOTHING
I just can’t win. Last week I reported how one person accused this column of being nothing but a sycophantic praise outlet for the club. Well this week it seems I got the opposite reaction. After expressing my own personal opinion about the main bar closing after the Tigers game the column was branded ‘utter rubbish’ in one irate message to myself. I now realise in some quarters its heresy to either praise or criticise the club, silly me. But its all swings and roundabouts and sticks and stones and all that but I actually great take heart from these attacks. You see now I know I have TWO readers. One thing still worries me though, why wasn’t the column ‘utter rubbish’ in the weeks the club was praised?
CAN YOU HELP THE SCARLETS?
Finally I have been contacted by Les Williams the club historian at Llanelli who is hunting down some missing sections of the clubs past. He is looking for Saints v Scarlets programmes, all played at the Gardens, on 6/10/69, 7/12/68 and 3/12/66.
If you can help please email me at coysdc@aol.com. I would give my phone number but I’m worried my two readers might be on to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment