By Will Warner
November 24 2002

Sitting at my PC in the clear light of the day I’m pleased that I can reflect back on yesterday’s (Saturday) game in a calm and logical way. Quins gave one of the worst performances of the Evs era. By far the worst of the season.

 Every uncharitable descriptive term applies.  Boneheadly clueless and inept would be some of the more polite ones. So my match report won’t dwell too long on the collective failure.

If you haven’t been to Franklin’s Gardens for the last couple of years then you would hardly recognise it now, such has been the pace of development. The scaffolding that passed as the South Stand and where the visitors are normally seated, went last year. The new West Stand, Church’s, was opened a couple of weeks ago and looks very much like our own East Stand.

pic: Binky

The three stands are all connected and it makes a very impressive horse shoe shape. Ground capacity is up to 12, 600. It is far away the best club rugby arena in the land.

pic: Binky

We arrived early for the noon start, just before the team arrived - although a few of them never appeared to get off the bus. By kick off the heavy rain had abated but there was still much surface water on the pitch and conditions were clearly going to be difficult for both sides.

Before the game started there was a minutes silence for Ron Jacobs. He was one of the driving forces behind the new Church’s Stand. He appeared for Saints 470 times, a club record, capped 27 times for England and was also a president of the RFU a few years back.

Quins were fielding an experimental side with currently a third of their professional squad unavailable. With all four centres outAndy Reay was given his first first team start and Rob Jewell got another outing at outside centre. James Hayter was on the bench, again, for the first time. So too was Kai Horstman.   Luke Sherriff came in for the unavailable Ace TiaTia and Scott Bemand carried on at nine for the still injured Nick Duncombe. The core of the team was still strong and experienced with a healthy dose of talented youngsters.

The game started badly as Burke slipped as he kicked off. The ball went straight to the ample frame of the highly impressive Andrew Blowers who started a move that promptly challenged Quin’s defence down the right hand side. Matt Moore prevented Jon Sleighthome going through onto a skimming chip and was pulled up for a penalty. Paul Grayson converted 3-0 down after one minute.

The next ten minutes were dominated by the conditions as both sides tried to get a grip of the wet surface. Several drop balls and players slipping indicated that it was going to be a hard afternoon.  Quins started to put a few moves together. After a penalty on their own 22, a good kick to touch and a won lineout. 

pic: Binky

The chance was lost when Ben Gollings hesitated and the defence closed in on him. Shortly afterwards, a trade mark long range skimming grubber kick from Nathan Williams found touch close to the Saints’ line. Quins stole the lineout and Tony Diprose was driven over for a try. 

Paul Burke converted putting Quins 7-3 up. That was the high point. The next hour saw a catalogue of errors as the Northampton forwards took control of the game. A young pack, largely second choice, played as an effective unit and more than punched their weight. Northampton added two tries before half time to go with the two additional penalties Grayson had kicked. At half time, Quins were looking a little shell shocked and definitely second best. Their defence was very panicky and they were constantly suffering from not being able to bring the man down with the first tackle.

Jim Evans and Matt Powell came on at half time for Bill Davison and Scott Bemand. But to little effect. Powell’s first touch was a knock on from a promising position. It was that sort of day. As the game wore on it was the amount of ball that Quins were winning and then promptly losing that was driving their fans to distraction. Alex Codling and Diprose ruled the line outs all day. I lost count of the number of times Codling stole ball. At one lineout, Saints didn’t even bother to jump for their own ball, they just threw it straight to Codling.

pic: Binky

Quin’s scrum performed quite well as well. With so much set play ball won, they had the possession to do serious damage. But the continual knock ons and some very poor rucking saw Quins lose the ball time and time again.

More substitutions followed. Ugo Monye came on for his second game to replace Moore. Pablo Cardinali replaced Laurent Gomez. Late on Seb Fitzgerald replaced Burke and Kai Horstmann replaced Andre Vos. All to little avail - In spite of some dogged defence, Saints secured maximum points with Nick Beal’s second try a few minutes from the end.

At the press conference afterwards there couldn’t have been a greater contrast between the messages and body language of both management teams. Saints were all upbeat “…. players were told to make it hard for internationals to reclaim their places”. They enthused how their pack had worked as a unit both forwards and back. They singled out Bruce Reihana, the former All Black, as having a storming game. Which he did.

Evs was more terse and downbeat. But he’s not a man to hide or make excuses. The first questions was “Was this performance a step backwards?”. “Yes” was the reply. A few moments of silence followed. This was definitely not the time to tell a knock knock joke! Evs answered some other questions with slightly longer replies, the gist of it was “…. we were outmuscled in the tackle area …. out rucked … won a lot of ball … no momentum …. entire performance was very flat.”

I’m not sure what positive observations can be made from this game. We do have a glut of young players coming through, but most of them are a year or two away from holding regular first team places. Monye got the chance to show his speed, but it was mainly in defensive situations. Reay, who looks like a mini-Stockers, held his own, had one little run. Jim Evans is fast developing and could well hold his position by the end of the season.

The supporters deserve a mention too. Quite a few had journeyed north and most stayed to watch the England game in one of the many bars. It was a shame so many had taken the lure of a ticket elsewhere.

Amidst the gloom there were a few funny moments. One Saints player went down clutching his right leg. The trainer comes on and starts treating his left leg! The announcer was overjoyed when Scott Bemand went off, because he kept making such a hash of saying his name. (Bay-mond, Bee-mond, Bey-mand, B’mand!)

On the injury front, Andre Vos had his arm in a sling at the end, the extent of his shoulder damage wasn’t known last night (I might have been told late on, but I was squiffy my then). Burke’s limp wasn’t serious. Ben Gollings has now lost his hard man tag as the RFU will almost certainly rescind his yellow card from Sarries this week. So he’s back to being an over grown alter boy again.

Next week a whole host of players should return. Will, Bill and Jase from internationals. Ace will be back from New Zealand as well. Duncombe is close to fitness. Stockers and Bell are both only a couple of weeks away. Luger isn’t that much behind either. So probably it’s best to draw a line under Saturday and look forward to the next two league games. Sarries at home, and home games are fast running out and away to Bath just after Christmas. Two wins there, and we can breathe a little easier.