By Louisa
March 13 2005

Saturday 18th September. Top of the premiership with two bonus point wins and Sky’s try of the month award in the bag. Hoping for more of the same, we went into the afternoon’s match against Gloucester feeling optimistic.

Yes, they were unbeaten so far in the season, but so were we, and while their wins had been solid ones, they had also been unspectacular. We were at home and surely we’d have the edge… surely?

And that was where our season went spectacularly off the rails.

By 5:30 that afternoon, it was clear that we’d been outplayed, out-thought, out-coached and generally outdone. As Ben Dover said at the time, we just had to hope that ‘not too many of Gloucester’s premiership classmates would borrow their textbooks’.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what they did do and coupled with unrest behind the scenes, our longest ever losing run ensued.

Clashes between the two sides are traditionally very tight and of their 15 meetings so far in the premiership, Gloucester have won 9 and Saints 6. The Cherry and Whites come into this weekend’s game on the back of a heartbreaking extra time defeat to Bath in the semi-final of the Powergen Cup, losing to an Andy Williams score in the 100^th minute.

Gloucester will be reeling both physically and mentally from the manner such a loss, and with less than six days preparation before they welcome us to Kingsholme, could this be our best chance of a win up there this season?

On the other hand, with the Powergen Cup route to Heineken Cup rugby next season now closed to them, Gloucester will be desperate to maintain a top 4 position in the table to secure automatic qualification. James Simpson Daniel claims that his side feel “empty”, “drained” and “absolutely exhausted”. It sounds like more than anything, their pride has been hurt, and as Leicester found out two weeks ago, you can never trust a wounded animal. Bath have kicked the hornet’s nest and whatever happens, we must beware of the backlash.

Saints on the other hand, go into Saturday’s match on the back of a much needed win. And it wasn’t just any old win, oh no, for those who need reminding (and I just like saying it!), two weeks ago, Saints overcame league leaders and East-Midlands rivals, Leicester, in a stunning display of passion, commitment and pride, with the scoreboard eventually reading 26-11 to the men in green, black and gold. Now we mustn’t underestimate what a test this weekend is going to be for our boys, but confidences will have been given a much needed boost after such a vital victory against the Tigers and things certainly look much better than they did after the Wasps match.

In the Saints starting line-up there have been two injury enforced changes made from the team that beat Leicester two weeks ago. The first is a welcome back to the starting fifteen for Wylie Human after Ben Cohen fractured a cheekbone in Saturday’s Rugby Aid match at Twickenham. The second change, is a back row shuffle around with Mark Soden coming in at number eight and Andrew Blowers moving to blindside flanker, replacing the injured Darren Fox. There is also a bench place for England 7’s centre and academy product, Andy Vilk and for Scotland international, Ross Beattie, back in the squad from injury.

The Saintsmen for this weekend will be:

15 BRUCE REIHANA
14 John Rudd
13 Neil Starling
12 Marc Stcherbina
11 Wylie Human
10 Shane Drahm
9 Johnny Howard
1 Simon Emms
2 Dan Richmond
3 ROBBIE MORRIS
4 Matt Lord
5 Damien Browne
6 ANDREW BLOWERS
7 CORNE KRIGE (capt)
8 Mark Soden

Replacements

16 Chris Budgen
17 Brett Sturgess
18 Grant Seely
19 ROSS BEATTIE
20 Billy Fulton
21 Luke Myring
22 Andy Vilk

At the time of writing, Nigel Melville had not yet unveiled his team for Saturday’s match, but we can be certain that it will be a strong one, most probably including the likes of Henry Paul and the ever-brilliant James Simpson-Daniel, who will feel that he has a point to prove to Andy Robinson after being overlooked from the England set up yet again this week. Let’s just hope he doesn’t ‘do a Cohen’ and play a blinder! There will however, be several key absentees from the squad – Andy Hazell once more received the England call-up and key players such as McRae, Vickery and Fortey are all out injured.

Gloucester has a team packed to the rafters with class players but as we all now know, that doesn’t count for anything if the mindset isn’t right. The Cherry & Whites have been blowing hot and cold all season – which Gloucester will we see take the field take the field on Saturday? We’ll have to wait and see…

Right, so I’ve covered the teams, all that’s left for me to do is my prediction. Well, it’s certainly not going to be a breeze, but I don’t think that we can underestimate the effect that the win over the Tigers will have had on the team. If we can keep a calm head under pressure, and if the likes of Matt Lord, Corne Krige, and Johnny Howard et al can reproduce last week’s herculean effort, I truly believe that we’ll have a win on our hands.

Saints by 12.!!!

Louisa