The Curse of Kingston Park
Are we cursed?
By Tim (egb)
February 18 2008
For at least the third year running your correspondent has been to this game, it’s been freezing cold, and seen a Saracens victory plucked from their grasp in the final few seconds of play. Two years ago it was a Crichton kick, last year it was the disallowing of Rodd Penney’s perfectly good try in the final move of the game. A few weeks ago in Watford it was Noon’s last gasp try.
For at least the third year running your correspondent has been to this game, it’s been freezing cold, and seen a Saracens victory plucked from their grasp in the final few seconds of play. Two years ago it was a Crichton kick, last year it was the disallowing of Rodd Penney’s perfectly good try in the final move of the game. A few weeks ago in Watford it was Noon’s last gasp try.
With less than 90 seconds on the clock referee Rose thought he saw hands in a ruck just outside the Saracens 22, and pinged Saracens. Blessed Jonny adopted the normal constipation position, kicked, and hit the post. To the joy of 98% of the crowd at Kingston Park it bounced inside the post and all Sarries could do then was restart and watch Newcastle run the clock down through slow-moving rucks. In fact, Saracens nearly did a Biarritz to Newcastle in those final moments, counter-rucking to turn the ball over, and were about to succeed when Rose decided it wasn’t coming out, not the infringement of Mr Yates pinning a Falcons player to the ground off the ruck, and blew for full-time. The curse of losing to Newcastle in the final minute had come back to haunt Saracens.
Jonny kicked the game off, and for the first quarter the game was played in the Falcons half, with plenty of pressure from Saracens against a well-ordered Newcastle defence, with Flood and Jonny putting in a series of clearing kicks. Saracens fatally failed to capitalize on any of this possession and territory. During this period Faz anonymously left the field to be replaced by Powell. After 19 minutes Newcastle finally got the ball to their backs, and of course with their talent (Jonny; Toby; and Matty – as the locals referred to them) it was bound to happen. Tait sprung through to be hauled down by Haughton 5 yards from the line, Saracens responded well, and seems to have repulsed this foray, but just when play was getting back towards half way, Jonny sprung through again, offloaded to Toby, and he scored near the posts. A simple conversion followed for the constipated one, 7-0 to Falcons.
What followed was interesting, but more or less a series of exchanges of possession with both sides playing well in defence. Jonny got another penalty = 10-0. The game was balanced until the final five minutes, when Sarries upped the intensity, firstly drawing a penalty from a big off-side hit on Jackson by Rhino Rudd, which Glenda duly converted = 10-3 to Falcons. Followed by re-gathering the restart, putting a number phases together to get within 1 metre of the Falcons line. Unfortunately in the final moment of the half young Powell decided to pass, when it looked easier to fall over and ground the ball. Unfortunately the ball was knocked-on. End of first half = 10-3. Saracens probably had 75% of possession, but had failed to use it. As I went for my half-time wine, there was no need to panic for Saracens, just keep the intensity up, control the Falcons midfield, and execute some chances.
From the kick-off Kameli was done for blocking giving Jonny a penalty opportunity from half-way. The attempt was woeful, Skirv’s caught it on the 22 before Jackson cleared to half-way. Unconvincing. After that the game was a replay of the first half for the first 18 minutes. Lots of Saracens possession, multi-phase rugby, without a great deal of penetration. But there was continuity in the phases. De Kock was starting to marshal his troops and get things going. Saracens continued to batter a stout Falcons defence, and finally after probably 15 phases Falcons got stretched out wide and with some slick hands Skirving went over near the corner = 10-8 Falcons. Glenda missed the kick. Skirv’s immediately went off to replaced by Ches, who continued getting stuck into the Falcons with his usual passion!
Then possession from Sarries resumed. On 24 minutes Haughton broke through on a mazy run, was one-on-one with the fullback with support arriving. Woods, the Falcons and Saxons flanker (who was out-played by Seymour I’d note), cynically blocked the supporting runner and was yellow carded for his trouble. It saved a certain try. Glenda converted from the resultant penalty = 10-11 Saracens.
Saracens now had the bit between their teeth, Hugh, who’d been excellent, went off to be replaced by Ryder (the young Grewcock as my daughter calls him). So two enforcers on for Sarries.
We then had a game of penalty tennis, first Jonny = 13-11, then Glenda = 13-14, but Sarries were getting the upper hand, consistently turning-over ball through counter-rucking. The game tightened up, there was a lot more close-quarters forward work. It was getting tense – particularly as I knew of ‘The Curse’.
With less than 90 seconds on the clock referee Rose penalized Sarries for hands on the floor in a ruck, about 30 metres out. Trouble was all the Sarries players were standing up, and not near the ball, so unless King Louie was playing, with great long ape arms then the only hands on the floor were the 2 Falcons players. Bizzarre. Jonny took his allotted 58 seconds to line up the kick, sat on the pot, ran and swung through the ball. The ghosts of Kingston Park moved the ball a fraction, so that when it hit the posts, it staggered through = 16-14 to Falcons. Very unconvincing.
All that was left to do was for Glenda to restart, Falcons to gather well, play a few static rucks and de Kock to get livid with Rose for not recognizing another successful counter-ruck, when the ball was coming out Saracens side. End of game = 16-14, and another 2 point loss to Falcons this season, resulting in a total of 6 GP lost points.
A game Saracens should have won, not easily, but with the possession and territory they enjoyed the final Jonny kick shouldn’t have mattered. There was generally a lack of penetration from Sarries and following the removal of Faz the midfield without either Faz or Kev meant Falcons always looked threatening. In the back 3 Haughton had a good game (again – why isn’t he in the England set-up. I ask you: Balshaw ?), but Kameli is clearly out-of-sorts, and Leonelli was unthreatening. Russell and Scabs should get in if fit for next week against Quins. We are missing Super Kev and Faz. Let’s hope we see a back-lash for a disappointing defeat.
I think we missed our Pocket Rocket as Leonelli had a poor game.
In terms of the last minute penalty, we were our own worst enemies as Glen kicked possession away to give the Falcons a line out near the half way line. We never looked like winning one of their line outs all day, and it just set them up to look for an infringement.
Personally I would have liked to have got some points on the board first as a buffer.......but then again I'm not a rugby coach !
It was a frustrating day because we did actually play some good rugby.....and we had a lot of the possession.
Oh well sh*t happens !
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2008:02:18:16:15:38 by Waldo.
You rightly won the 4 points, well done, You're rapidly becoming a bogy team for us.
Sarries best players in the starting XV, by a country mile, were at 9, 10, 4&5. Of them, only Huge,(as he was known at KP) is England qualified and the only England qualified player in the starting XV (there were 3 forwards and 3 backs) who looked like he should be in the Saxons squad.
Harry Hotspur
PS. It wasn't vold - just bracing !
For Health & Safety of the players surely the referee should have blown his whistle and ended the game there and then !
Of course I'm not going to mention that Falcons set-piece was flawless: 13 of 13 own line-out won, plus 2 of ours poached, or the scrums won on own possesion was 100%, and they one of our too. I did say their defence was good, but to be fair we were not running any lines from depth.
Write your own damn article, and I'll write a Saracens one. This isn't the bloody Sunday Times - and if it was I'd be the Saracens version of Clarkson.
It was a good game yesterday and I think we deserved to shade it. Your full back Haughton had a tremendous game and he was positive at all times, and totally agree he should be considered for England if yesterday's performance was typical of him.
I never thought of Jonny looking like he was having a dump before a kick, but I suppose it's not a bad description when you think about it.
As for the weather, it was a glorious day yesterday. You should be here when it is really cold!!
As for the rugby --- we threw away 6 points over the 2 games. Listening on the net I have to say that I've never heard such moaning about the ref. God knows what happens when they play Quins; the competition will be between who hates the ref most. Utterly childish.
Woods penalty and sin-binning was a big moment in the game. A certain 7 points for Sarries was reduced to 3, and we all know what an extra 4 would have done to the result. To some Falcons fans this was smart and probably the right thing to do. Others Falcons fans saw it from a more balanced perspective;
“Good 7's need to play right at the edge of what’s legal, but Sunday [Woods] was over the edge, tumbling down a deep chasm of wrongness.”
From a Sarries fans point of view I saw him as a Cynical cheating scumbag. AND The Falcons fans have the audacity to complain about the legality of some of out Back-row moves – Pot, Kettle BLACK (Seymour has never, ever been carded).
However we failed to capitalise on the man down, and, as last year we failed to hook-up properly all afternoon. The scrum was also a worry and I don’t really understand why the Gaffer didn’t use Kyri and Mercey. Worth noting that Del was brilliant (Not that Ashton will have been watching – he would be more worried about a frozen training ground at his beloved Bath).
But, as last year, it wasn’t an unfortunate decision in the dying minutes that lost us the match; it was our inability to play to our potential fro the other 78 minutes that cost us.
Now looking dogey as we are 'really' fifth. Lets hope we can pick up against Quins.
Under the circumstances the referee went as far as he was allowed to under the current rules.
And how did we do against Hayman?
I was immensely disappointed by Faz, before he had to go off, as I had never seen him in the flesh before . Apart from Skirving's try, I thought your backs were running poor lines, lacking any real incision and pace. I include Haughton in that comment. He ran slowish mazy lines going nowhere in particular and always liable to collide with another Sarries player. For my
money, Lewsey/ Abendanon/Cipriani are streets ahead Of RH and Balshaw at 15.
different papers give different interpretations (before / after / during) - was his injury / substitution the reason for Newcastles try
Harry H - I'd add your own Tait to the top of that list. Looked a major threat everytime he got the ball. I think Haughton is better than Abendenon though - he was@#$%&against us a few weeks ago.
Bard - Yates probably had the toughest assignment of the season. He held his own. Their scrum was mainly solid, so was ours. Yates did alot of complaining to the TJ about Hayman's binding, so he was being given trouble, but held up - my notes say no penalties against either prop - only one against their loose-head, and a free-kick against Census.