New Year Sale
By AlanE
January 9 2013
Nancy Mitford must be turning in her grave. The publicist for U or non-U styles of communication would have seen the ‘ed ‘itters announcement of our ‘last leage (sic) match at VR’ and known she was dealing with a non-U club – blue collars to the last. But we are now on the up, looking south-eastwards towards Barnet and maybe all will be different in a month or two’s time.
I wanted to do the report of this last match because t’lad and I are two of the original ‘91’ and have been there since the dawn of (Watford) time in 1997/98, and even before the dawn of time, at the Bramley Road dog track. However, I broke my match reporting ‘duck’ in the LV=Cup match defeat away at Sale a few weeks ago and didn’t want to be a harbinger of doom with a sort of New Year Sale two-defeats- for-the-price-of-one bargain. So I didn’t break cover until the result was safely in the bag.
The first league match of that 97/8 season was actually against Sale, but, unfortunately for those of a tidy mindset, it was away at Heywood Road. The first home match at VR was supposed to be on Sunday 31 August against Richmond but plans for that were sadly derailed by events the previous evening in Paris and the first match didn’t actually happen until a dismal Wednesday evening in October.
So here we were in our final league match – watched by a crowd of 5,472, which is OK if your standard of comparison is 1997 – in which case over the years we have had a 32% increase on a crowd of 4,134. But by any rational measure it was bad, and we must look forward in hope to better, happier and noisier times as the only Premiership club with a London postcode,
In truth this was not a match which will live long in the memory, mine at least. Long passages of sub-standard play from both sides were lit up at the last by three or four flashes of genuine brilliance, fortunately mostly from Sarries.
The match started with a couple of minutes of arm wrestling leading to the first of the ten penalties scored in the match at least 36 of which seemed to be given for not rolling away from the tackled player. The ref, Mr Wigglesworth (no relation), was not at his most communicative throughout the match with a variety of weird gestures, or none at all. Anyway, Cipriani penalty – 0-3, closely followed by another a couple of minutes later – 0-6.
At this point Saracens seemed to wake up. They had played the first ten minutes of the match pretty much in the wrong part of the pitch and, without really seeming to be outplayed, had found themselves behind. And so it was that, after tem minutes, we saw the first Saracens attack. Breaking from well into our own half the ball went through a number of hands and we made a good 50 metres into Sale territory before the essentially lateral nature of the move saw the last man (Stretts?) on the left wing crashed into touch by two defenders. The attack was a little clunky, the best bit being the break by Joel Tomkins who cut a good line, straightening before offloading to his left.
From the ensuing line-out Sarries had to survive a Sale attack; strong defence, notably from Brad Barritt, held them at bay and it was not long before, on 13 minutes a penalty allowed Owen Farrell to get Sarries on the scoreboard with a kick from around half-way. This was followed by the equaliser a couple of minutes later with a slightly shorter kick around ten metres but well out to the left. 6-6.
We then entered a period for the rest of the half of no-phase rugby, the ball seeming to come and go from one team to the other with no real structure. However, Sarries were able to keep the majority of the territory and this paid off.
Another Sarries attack mid-way through the half was set up by a Matt Stevens break from half-way, side-stepping his way through midfield. We used to see him do this a lot for Bath but haven’t seen enough of it here – more please, Matt, it was a delight. Even better, it led directly to the penalty score which gave us the lead for the first time as he was not released when tackled. 9-6.
At this point Andy Powell went off injured and we saw the new Kiwi, Daniel Braid, for the first time. He looked a useful player, very solid and with good hands. I am going to give him the benefit of the jet lag doubt as, to me, he didn’t live up to his reputation in this match, seeming to be a bit behind the play at times. I am sure he will be one to watch in future.
For the remaining 20 minutes or so Sarries closed out the half by pressing the Sale defence. When defending they looked very strong with Barritt, Kelly Broon (as the team announcer called him) and Fraser well to the fore; when attacking they looked lateral, awkward and predictable. However, Sale looked relatively clueless in this period exemplified by Peel taking the ball from one scrum and going for a little sideways stroll with the ball and ending up behind where he started before getting clattered. Sarries gained two more penalties on 22 and 28 minutes, in the case of the last one butchering a 3-on-1 overlap but winning the breakdown penalty to take the half time score to 15-6.
It’s fair to say that t’lad was pretty cross at half time with the wasted chances. His main complaint is the alignment of the backs when in attack where Owen stands so deep and the backs are flat. No momentum is built from this position and the attack tends to drift sideways and we lose the ball quite quickly. There is also no use of decoy runners; actually ‘no’ should read ‘limited’ as we shall see in the second half.
The first twenty minutes of the second half were a re-run of the previous thirty. The score moved from 15-6 to 18-9 as Farrell and Cipriani traded penalties. The Cipriani score came first and was aided by some Sarries backchat which annoyed Mr Wigglesworth enough to march the spot 10 metres forward. Did we learn nothing last week? The Sarries one came from a lineout and was given for crossing – not impossible, but unusual. Peel kicked the ball away but no further sanction was applied; obviously Mr Wigglesworth was adopting a different protocol this week to last week’s Sir. An additional 10 metres would have helped Owen but it didn’t matter; the lad was not going to miss anything today.
And then came the best ten minutes of the match. And Sale started it. They initiated a fast fluent backs move going left with an immaculately timed pass from Cueto in midfield coming into the line to make the extra man. It fizzled out but in the ensuing moves Sale were awarded their final penalty which Cips got hitting both posts on the way through. 18-12.
By this point Sarries had changed 5 players and we now had a completely new front row; Wiggy had come on for NDK and now Charlie Hodgson came on nominally at fly half with Owen moving to the centre for Joel Tomkins who had had another good match.
A lineout from the restart saw George Kruis catch and give the ball and Wiggy pass it quickly, not to Charlie but to Brad Barritt at first receiver. (The Aviva website has this wrong!) This confused the Sale defence completely with one centre looking to take out Owen who just acted as a decoy and the other Sale centre moving to flatten Charlie who had gone wide. What none of them seemed to expect was Stretts coming in off his wing and taking the ball which could have gone to Owen or out to Charlie. Charlie’s drift to a wider position opened up the gap which Stretts, curving round behind the lineout, exploded through to line up an unopposed run in. So simple and so beautifully executed. 25-12
Could we get 3 more tries in 16 minutes? Well, no, but we did get another on 70 minutes when Stretts coming into the line in another attack neatly chipped through for Charlie to turn the defence and still have plenty of time to collect the awkwardly bouncing ball and score by the posts. 32-12
After that Sarries made further substitutions and saw the match out to take four points and go back into second place.
So what do we learn from that. Sarries can tackle – ouch, how they can. In attack, there is plenty for Kevin Sorrell to get his teeth into in his newly extended period as backs coach. Dimes must be satisfied as he ‘kept Sarries in sight for 60 minutes’ but he needs to lift his sights a little if they are to stay up. His team are not strong enough to provide a platform for their backs at this level. Owen is probably right that we got the better of Sale in the first half and played some rugby in the second; it just feels as if they could have played a little more and gone for the jugular before Mark Cueto’s move seemed to inspire Sarries to up their game.
Good luck to Sale for the rest of the season. Like London Irish they have a great bunch of supporters, and both teams have some good players, but they both seem to be afflicted with management teams in turmoil. We will be going to the MadStad in a few weeks to see if Brian Smith has yet managed to coach properly the kick-chase game which the stats say, but he denies, they are trying to play. As for Sale, t’lad is now back in Man-chust-uh. If we had organised ourselves properly he could have hitched a lift on the Sale coach and put them right on where they are going wrong.
Anyway, that’s all for now – I will be back to VR for our real swansong, against Edinburgh in a fortnight. It will be good to meet their thousands of supporters who would not have been able to make this match if held in the Cape Town sunshine, but can now come down, thanks to their management’s thinking of them first and foremost, to see it in more familiar, darker, climes in Watford. For those who can’t make the final Heineken pool match, see U later at the Alley Ants. Butlers anyone?
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.
Thanks for the match report Alan.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013:01:21:13:59:03 by sutton_sarrie.
Regardez mon visage. Suis-je bovvered?
See you on Sunday. Will there be a dry eye in the house as we say farewell to Vicarage Road and our old familiar routines, decade-long seating arrangements and the slightly obscured view of the big screen
Or let's just a few beers in with Ginger John and the others
and look forward in a relentlessly positive light to the Promised Land at Allianz Park. Hope we're all sitting near each other there too.