By Jason Harris
September 22 2003

If last season's Vicarage Road encounter between Saracens and Leicster was rousing, the one at Welford Road nailbiting and the one at Franklin's Gardens a classic, then this one has to go down as the best cure for insomnia since a bottle of Drambuie and a dozen paracetamol capsules. It was an excruciatingly dull affair. One spoiled by two sides intent on killing everything on the floor, looking inept in attack and strong in defence and referee (Roy Maybank) forced to whistle incessantly came to life for just three minutes right at the end.

With just two minutes of regulation time remaining Morgan Williams thought he had won the game for the Men in Black, when he rounded off an early contender for try of the season. An 80 metre moved instigated by a Ben Johnston counter attack and involving wing Richard Haughton, props Andy Kershaw and Emiliano Bergamaschi, flanker Ryan Peacey and the scoring scrum half had the tense Sarries support in raptures.

However, just 90 secons later, Leicester's replacement flanker Will Skinner stepped out of Richard Haughton's last-ditch tackle to go in under the posts with his first touch after Tim Stimpson kicked and re-gathered up the left touchline and flipped the ball inside to Ollie Smith who in turn gave the scoring pass to the jubliant Skinner.

Goode and Stimpson traded kicks all afternoon and both ended up with 14 points added to their personal tallies. But this game had more spoilers than the British Grand Prix such was the amount of negativity on display.

A draw was a fair result, but neither side really deserved to win, frankly, and both will need to improve and try to play a bit more football if they are to be challenging at the top of the table come next May.

There was far to much cynicism, far too much off-the-ball nonsense and niggle, and far too little ambition shown to indicate whether or not either of these sides has what it takes to win silverware this season.