MoTM: Bruce Reihana - Review

A True Saintsman
By Saint Tim
June 15 2011

With Bruce Reihana's leaving barbeque tomorrow I thought I would have a quick look back at the time that Bruce has won the Man of the Match poll.  Bruce has been a loyal servant, a fantastic player and for a period also Captain fantastic.  Few who witnessed it can forget the emotional speech he gave on the pitch on the day we were relegated, promising that we would be back.  Well we are.

 A journey to our hearts

 

I remember well the first time that I had to put Bruce's name up for the man of the match poll as I struggled with the spelling of his surname.  Little was I to know how second nature it would become to me over the years.

Bruce has won the Man of the Match a staggering 26 times, which is more than any other player over the same period.  His first win came in that first season at home to Quins and his final victory was in the home defeat to Saracens this year.

Bruce has won the award at home 16 times and away 10 times.  His favourite team to turn on the style against is Bath where he has won the poll 4 times followed by London Irish and Waps with three each.  Interestingly Bruce has never won the poll against our fiercest local rivals Leicester - but that is probably as those games are normally a slugfest between numbers one to eight.

There are some interesting names on the list, Rotherham for instance where Bruce has won twice back when they were a Premiership team, Esher, Doncaster and the Cornish All Blacks are included.

Bruce has been a star player for our team and I can only apologise that I have not had the time to collate a more detailed analysis of his victories.  He is a player I will never forget and I hope he can play some part in the future of the Saints.