Prof’s Positives Week 35: Northampton

By The Prof
May 9 2003

So that was our last home game in the Zurich Premiership this season. Granted there could be further home games in the Zurich Wildcard Playoffs but as far as the home league games goes that’s it.

And disappointing it was too, the fact we came away with no points was frustrating, granted we didn’t play very well, but to be quite honest neither did Northampton. It was another one of those games where we should have got something out of it, it was a bit like the Gloucester home game or the trip up to Welford Road. But enough of the disappointment, what of the positives?

Well we finally had a chance to say cheerio to Woody who won’t play in the famous quartered No2 shirt again, not much fuss was made but at least I hope he knows what we thought of him.

His companions in the front row (Jones, Fuga, Dawson, Gomez and Starr) set about and completely trounced their opposition, to an ex-prop’s blurred eyes it was a joy to behold. Some of their hard work was undone however, when the referee (Mr Goodliffe) blew up to penalise pulling in the scrum, how you can pull a scrum backwards and have the whole scrum going forwards is a tad confusing to say the least! Miall and Davison both performed well in the scrum and around the pitch. Diprose, Vos and Winters did a solid job in the back row as usual.

Behind the scrum the major force for us was Mel Deane, he constantly ran straight, attacking lines into the Northampton defence, he made some ground too, he looks like he will be a very good signing for next season.

The injuries to Starr and Gomez, which kept Gomez and Starr out for so long seem to have gone which was great new. Another player who is set to return this weekend is Par Sanderson, Pat injured his leg playing against Caerphilly a long while back, it will be great to see him playing again.

Elsewhere in the club the U21s trounced their opposition from Northampton 24-51 to revenge the pre-Christmas defeat with points coming from Ugo Monye, Adrian Jarvis, Henry Barratt, Max Wilcocks and Tom Allen. This was the last match for the U21s and a few will be moving on next season including Tom MacCormick, Max Wilcocks and Sam Walton, we wish them all the best. I would also like to thank sb for providing the U21 match reports for this site this season.

So the U21s finished on a high, the first team forwards did well in the tight, we have one more game away to our old enemy Wasps before we can think of wildcard playoffs, with a number of youngsters in the team it should be a great day out.

Come on you Quinssa!