Saints v London Irish

Let's get the excuses / reality check over first. I watched the match on BT Sport. Or at least up until Northampton scored their 5th try to go 29 - 0 up at which point Easter Lunch and guests took over.

I did switch over briefly to discover that the score had changed to 29 – 21 and watched as Marland (Bye Bye) Yarde received a pass from Tom Homer to run the length of the pitch only to be brought back by who needs TV anyway referee JP Doyle.

We haven’t had the best of luck this season (Phipps, Homer and Halani Aulika – the knock-on at the death of the home game against Leicester) but the partial charge downs which lead to the first 2 Saints tries belonged in La-La land.

When Austin Healey and Ben Kay then both declared that they were suspicious about whether the ball was grounded for the 1st try and the TV replays showed it looked unlikely that it had been, at 14 – 0 down with not many minutes on the clock, I feared that we were about to take a bit of an end-of-season shellacking. This against a team which had lost their last 3 league games and needed the points for a home tie in the play-offs.

Not that we were playing badly. In fact, the whole team seemed to want to play and the players were producing a very good brand of rugby. My Player of the Season Blair Cowan and Shane Geraghty were both to the fore.

  The question posed on the message board around the time of the Wasps game in November 2013 of what     had happened to the fabulous talent that was Shane Geraghty seemed to belong to a ‘before’, maybe a ‘before new owners’ when Shane must have wondered how he was playing 2nd fiddle to the boy in men’s rugby boots that is Ian Humphreys. (A great player in his prime when he did make the odd tackle; but not necessarily the man to take on Jacques Berger or even Ben Foden these days!)

But we can be ‘brittle’ and the dropped passes, the ease with which Saints seemed to be able to carve openings in our defence and both a ball and referee who seemed to be capriciously not on our side did not augur well.

And so there was one more Saints try which didn’t involve the bounce of the ball and a penalty before half time left the score at 24 – 0. Probably one of the least fair scorelines on the basis of what I’d seen; but more to do with belief and the skill levels of our players not quite (yet?!) up to the style of rugby they were trying to play.

The half-time talk from Brian Smith must have been curious. ‘Keep doing what you’re doing; but try to stop them scoring points and be slightly less ambitious with the ball’ would have been my thoughts. Along with an element of crossed fingers it’s not going to be more than 50!

Whatever it was it didn’t seem to work as no sooner than the 2nd half started, Saints scored their bonus point try after our midfield defence albeit being undertaken by a prop and a 2nd row was carved open by one of the Saints’ centres.

And that was enough for me. Time for a large glass of red wine and some pre-lunch conversation and a hope that 2014 / 15 brings us a bit better luck and an end to the Exit strategy of the players who lost faith in the club.

Except, as I mentioned above I turned the TV back on to discover that the scoreline was now 29 – 21 and I’d missed one of the great come-backs of all time! Indeed, the red wine (2nd glass) nearly went everywhere when Tom Homer (looking keen from the start of the 2nd half when he came for Alex Lewington) sent Marland away down the right wing.

I’m biased but I’ve seen a lot more ‘forward’ passes allowed on the ‘hands’ rule than the one JP decided was forward. And it was JP looking at the video screen at least 40 metres away from where he was standing who decided it was forward and not Geoff Warren the TV Ref sitting in the darkened room with the TV screen about 30 inches away from his nose.

I believe JP was criticised recently for referring everything to the Video Ref. He’s gone too far the other way if that’s the case.

Had I missed the great comeback? Err, not quite. I watched the LI tries on the Aviva site and discovered that the 1st LI try should have been prevented by Burrell kicking the ball into touch rather than trying to emulate Tomas O’Leary’s Liam Brady pass in the 1st half. Not even close although when JP Doyle decided to consult the Video Ref I feared the worst. (I know I was watching the replay but he might have changed his mind having got to the changing room and given holding against Sheridan which allowed Fenby to touchdown).

The 2nd try was an intercept by Shane who ran 80 metres to score. As he’d been throwing up after a Pisi tackle in the 1st half, I was semi-surprised he didn’t celebrate with another Technicolour Yawn.

The last try was well constructed and scored by Jebb Sinclair just after Saints were reduced to 14 players when Alex Waller interfered with the ball in a ruck while lying on the ground. There was a final Saints try as our brave and gallant lads went for the losing bonus point but lost control of the ball. Leaving the final score at 36 – 21. In reality probably a fair enough result on the team skills level; but slightly generous given the 2 bounces for the 2 tries.

2 more games to go before the New Era really gets underway. Gloucester away and then a currently rampant Sale at home. I wouldn’t bet against us winning both games, losing both or indeed winning one and losing another. I just wouldn’t like to predict which; nor the scores in any of the games.

2 bad defeats and Brian Smith might be in trouble although personally speaking I admire the way he’s steered what is a woefully underfunded team when compared with 75% of the other teams. Win in Gloucester and it might be curtains for Nigel Davies; I reckon it’ll be curtains for him anyway come the summer. Depending on the weather the Sale game might be the highest ever try tally between 2 teams.

Come on you Irish!