Northampton & Moz Memorial Match II Preview
By Ian Todd
April 28 2006
Bristol take part in a unique double-header with first a trivial Premiership game as Northampton strive to ensure Heineken cup qualification against a Bristol side secure in the league and little to realistically aim for. Followed by the Bristol v B**h supporters charity game: Moz Memorial Match 2.
It's the final Premiership home match of the season as curtain-raiser followed at 17:30 by the main event: Moz Memorial Match II.
First to Bristol, with Premiership survival assured by Newcastle’s win against a lacklustre Sale condemning Leeds to relegation, Bristol make some changes as the medical team have ordered some repairs well ahead of the close season with several members of the squad have either undergoing, or about to undergo, surgery for a variety of problems.
Vaughan Going has returned to New Zealand for personal reasons and David Lemi is set to have a bone spur removed from his heel on Thursday, and thus will not have the opportunity to overtake Tom Varndell as top try scorer in the league. Bernardo Stortoni returns for Going at full back and Marko Stanojevic takes Lemi's place on the wing.
Astonishingly, Bristol's front row of David Hilton, Mark Regan and Darren Crompton form the starting front row for the 18th time in 21 Premiership games. So much for those who doubted that a group of veterans would be able to last the pace in this league. However, the even more aged second row Gareth Llewellyn gets a rest and Nathan Budgett continues to recover from neck compression injury. Argentinian international Mariano Sambucetti and Roy Winters come in.
Matt Salter captains the side as normal from the blindside position and Craig Short, who continues to drain the colour from Lee Robinson by some strange vampiric process, replaces Joe El Abd on the openside with El Abd having undergone surgery on his thumb. Geraint Lewis starts at number eight.
Mark Irish and Neil Clark retain their places on the bench and are joined by Alex Clarke to make up the front row options. Dan Ward-Smith and Richard Martin-Redman provide second and back row cover. Danny Gray and Brian Lima provide cover for the backs.
A Northampton win would almost guarantee a Heineken Cup place and go a long way to securing a top four finish and a Premiership semi final spot. They have won their last four Premiership outings against Bristol including a 29-22 win on New Year's Day.
Surprisingly, it is actually still possible (although unlikely) for Bristol to qualify for the Heineken Cup. Personally I think that this would be a season too soon for Bristol, just look at poor Leeds. We outscored Northampton three tries to two in our last league meeting with Lemi claiming two and Crompton running in one from 60 metres (not really) and claimed a losing bonus point. However, Saints were struggling a bit at the time and I fear that we may struggle this time around. So obviously a win for us then.
With this piece of nonsense out of the way we can then move on to the Moz Memorial Match II. Once again Bristol take on B**h to assert our historic dominance and, perhaps more significantly, to raise money for the selected charity Medicens sans Frontieres. You can click here to make a donation now. We have a fantastic amount to do if we are to beat last year’s total.
The excellent and completely ringer-free Bristol side is:
1 Dean Jones 2 Rich Kingscott 3 Mark Dawnay 4 Oly Gaudion (captain, but far too short and lacking in bulk!) 5 Simon Debley 6 Jack Sheppard 7 Tim Thorne 8 Steve Ireland 9 Murray Bishop 10 Gavin Hooper 11 Oli Pool 12 Jon Bogan 13 Neil/Lyndon Davies 14 Simon Mortimer 15 Rob Weaver Second half reserves |
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