Much as I like to do match reports that concentrate on the positive aspects of a match, I feel that this week that would just be too much like hard work and to be fair the team deserves a rant. Last week supporters left the Garden's after a thoroughly absorbing encounter between two highly skilful and committed teams. This week they trudged off after watching a load of old tripe. Maybe it was a hangover from last week, maybe the limbs hadn't yet recovered or maybe the Saints thought 'it's only Irish we can beat these in our sleep!' Whatever the reason Wayne Smith must surely be bald from tearing out his hair as his team had no line out platform, no scrum, no kicking game, dropped the ball at every opportunity, passed themselves into trouble, ran up blind alleys and missed tackles with regularity.

Few wearing green, black and gold deserved their jersey whilst in stark contrast the highly committed Irish applied their dark arts with pride, passion, skill and large dollops of cunning and guile. They also realized that referee Rowden never spots anything under his nose so they stayed offside, why not they weren't getting pinged. They never retired 10 metres for any penalties again why bother. When the hapless official finally noticed in the 2nd half that they were pulling down mauls it didn't really matter. After all if Saints kicked to touch Irish would nick the ball, Grayson wasn't kicking well and Mr Rowden and clearly forgotten to pack his cards! The icing on the cake was at a late lineout where the Irish pack simply pushed every possible Saints jumper as the ball was thrown in and then scampered off with the ball. This isn't sour grapes, I admire the way the exiles played. Rugby Union has always been about 'getting away with it' and when you're getting away with everything, carry on! To say this was the only reason that Irish took the spoils would be unfair, on the day they were the better TEAM. A word that many Saints players seem to have temporarily forgotten.

To the game...

The phrase 'hats on wheels' will not be applied at all to this match report as it simply does not apply. From the off Saints tried to run the ball from their own in goal area against one of the best organized defences in the Zurich Premiership. That tactic got exactly what it deserved as Irish ended up with a scrum dangerously close to the home goal line and then made total monkeys of the defence to put Horak in for an easy score. Barry Everitt did his usual banana shaped run up and added the extras. For the second week running Saints were seven points down with only a few minutes on the board.


10 minutes later Saints had their first chance of some points but Larry struck the post with a penalty. Irish cleared the danger and then gave the prolific Everitt more penalty goal opportunites. By the half hour mark it was 0-13, this was not going to plan!

Finally the Saints set plays started to function. Grayson kicked to touch and a very solid lineout saw Thompson barrell his way through the defence for a well received score. Larry rediscovered his kicking ability and the score looked better at 7-13. Thank goodness, surely Saints would now stop messing about. Not a bit of it, they were just having a moment of clarity! 

More missed tackles saw veteran number 8 Sheasby charging down the Saints flank. With Justin Bishop in close support the only option for Reihana was to go for the man with the ball. Bruce's tackle was a bonus on a stark afternoon, if nothing else Sheasby wouldn't run at him again. Then Saints played yet another 'get out of jail free card,' as the cover just made it to Bishop and forced a knock on.


The Saints spent the rest of the first period trying to get out of their own half and it came as no surprise when Everitt was successful with another penalty kick to make the half time score 7-16.

The second half was a slight improvement, in that Irish didn't score anymore tries. However if they'd noticed a number of overlaps with Sackey waiting on the wing then this could have turned into a thrashing rather than just humiliation. Larry and Everitt exchanged penalties to make the score 10-19. Then there was a comedy of errors. Saints played panic rugby and Irish sat back and had a good laugh at them doing it! It is my understanding that Smudger fines players for errors such as dropped balls. If this is true there will be some very light Saints walletts this week.

Everitt continued his kicking masterclass to extend the lead to 10-22 and once again Irish sat back and waited. Saints desperately threw everything at the Irish defence. At times there was some good stuff out there. The pick and drive had it's moments as did the driving maul. Once again the Saints had both the territory and possession to win this match and once again the old inadequacies raised their ugly head. Any quick ball was ruined by awful passing and even worse catching. Two lineouts in quick succession first saw the ball go to Irish and then when good ball was finally won it was promptly dropped. It was painful to watch and went on for a pointless fifteen minutes.

With time running out the supporters voted with their feet. They'd had enough of this nonsense and were going for a drink or home for some tea. They missed nothing as they game fizzled to no-side. Once again the travelling support were left celebrating with their heroes whilst the Saints slunk away for the dressing room dressing down.

So what now? Firstly I hope Smudger has them training at 7am every day from Sunday to Friday. Personally I'd like to see them running through a stinking bog, carrying a sack of coal and dragging an 50lb anchor. Or as the great man would say "punushmunt ear roebucks"!!!  On Saturday we entertain Biarritz, by next Sunday our season could be over. I seriously hope not!