By By Jonathan Stockham
October 8 2006

Following on from last week’s hugely disappointing performance at Franklin’s Gardens against Worcester, in the first round of the EDF Cup, Saints fans travelled in hope to Rodney Parade to see the benefits of a hard week for the players on the training field.

Saints Sink Deeper into Mire at Newport

 

Newport Gwent Dragons  v Northampton Saints.

 

EDF Anglo Welsh Cup, 7 October 2006

 

Result: Dragons 26, Saints 7

 

By Jonathan Stockham, wisely reporting from his sofa.

 

Following on from last week’s hugely disappointing performance at Franklin’s Gardens against Worcester, in the first round of the EDF Cup, Saints fans travelled in hope to Rodney Parade to see the benefits of a hard week for the players on the training field. In a match billed in Wales as the opportunity for the Dragons to gain revenge for their 32 – 7 drubbing by Saints in the same competition last year, the Northampton side’s poor run of form continued.

 

This won’t take long as the details are too painful for any Saints follower to dwell upon.

 

On a fine evening, Saints kicked off and immediately applied pressure on the Dragons try line. Mark Robinson was pinged for offside as he tried to charge down a clearance kick from the Dragons in goal area but the tables were turned shortly after when the home side conceded a penalty in a very kickable position after drifting offside in the middle of their half. Robbie Kydd unfortunately missed a simple kick at goal and this rather set the tone for Saints evening.

 

Horror of horrors shortly after, when Carlos was sin binned after only 6 minutes for tackling (very forcefully) Gareth Cooper to prevent him taking a quick tap penalty. Carlos complained that he hadn’t heard the whistle but further back chat moved the penalty position 10 metres nearer the Saints line. Now, there were still 74 minutes of play left but two bad omens whilst the minutes were in single figures is really not a “good thing!”

 

Ceri Sweeney stepped up to take the 3 points on offer and shortly after added another two when Gareth Wyatt thundered over between the posts for a well worked try that came from one of a subsequent litany of mistakes by Saints. Paul Diggin had carried the ball back over his own goal line before grounding it and Dragons had the scrum five metres out. No 8 Fitisemanu moved the ball infield and set the backs up for Sweeney to send a well timed pass to Wyatt arriving through the centre at speed.

 

Saints captain Quinlan complained of obstruction leading up to the try but the Dragons had used their numerical advantage whilst Spencer was off the field to score a simple well organised try, very much against the run of play.

 

Although Saints had by far the upper hand in terms of possession and territory, they hadn’t a clue what to do with it. Numerous phases of tight play would be strung together by the pack, edging the ball forward mere centimetres with every drive round the fringes, only for the ball to be spun out to the backs or taken wider by the back row and then dropped…. or turned over…. or robbed in the tackle….or given away when penalised for infringements in the ruck.

 

The Dragons were hanging on by their fingernails but as the first half wore on, their increasingly confident defence stopped Saints in their tracks time and time again.

 

As half time neared, Saints were by now 13-0 down and taking penalty kicks to touch to attack from line outs. Saints finally found themselves 10 metres out in midfield and Sharky took quick ball on himself. Fixing opposite number Cooper with a hint of an outside run, he curved infield to touch down behind the posts. Kydd added the extras and after 36 minutes there was hope for the Saints travelling fans at 13 – 7.

 

That hope took a knock immediately afterwards as Carlos limped from the field to be welcomed on the bench by an ice pack to the inner thigh and some pearls of wisdom in his ear from Lennie Newman. Ian Vass replaced Carlos at 10 and proved (as if it needed to be said) that Carlos is irreplaceable.

 

Saints tried one last attack from deep but Ben Lewitt was penalised for holding on after the tackle and with the last kick of the half, Sweeney widened the home side’s lead to 16 – 7.

 

Channel S4C’s Ray Gravell interviewed Dragons’ coach Paul Turner at half time and the pair decided that this was going to be Dragons night! How right they were.

 

Saints were under pressure from the start and making errors again. Kicks for touch were being missed and even after Saints stole an attacking Dragons line out near the visitors line, the ball was brainlessly hacked back upfield to allow the Welsh side to counter attack, leading to a try for Fussell who wriggled through a couple of despairing tackles to score under the posts. The faultless kicking of Sweeney continued with this easy conversion to widen the gap to 23 – 7 after 5 minutes of the second half.

 

Saints then had the ball for most of what was left of the half – 35 minutes. The usual raft of substitutions started and although Chris Budgen was the usual pocket tornado in attack, having replaced Pat Barnard, Saints still managed to do nothing except make mistakes with masses of possession. By now, the home crowd were laughing every time a ball was knocked on or passed forward or aimlessly kicked back to the Dragons. It was clear that Saints simply didn’t have a clue how to play rugby and even when the Dragons had their tight head prop away in the sin bin, couldn’t manufacture a score from an attacking scrum.

 

The Dragons were continuing their immense defensive effort, none more so than flanker Colin Charvis, who went on the deservedly win man of the match.

 

As full time approached, Nathan Brew dropped a goal for the home side, Tom Smith limped off to be replaced by Dylan Hartley who had been taken off earlier as he started getting up the ref’s nose too much and the S4C commentary included the immortal words, “Watching Northampton is like watching paint dry!”

 

Mercifully, Nigel Griffiths blew for no side and the team who had seen little of the ball but played streetwise defensive rugby and scored two good three-quarter’s tries, won the day, Dragons reversing a run of 4 home defeats.

 

Saints, on the other hand, had seen a lot of hard work by the pack in dominating possession go to waste and by the end of the match, were frankly embarrassing to watch.

 

This is now what I would call a crisis. The standard of play with the ball in hand is appalling. There is a clear lack of thought and leadership about what we are doing on the pitch and the playing management need to have a long, hard look at themselves and their players as the current modus operandi is as effective as throwing tissue paper into the teeth of a gale.

 

The next two games, against Leicester in the Premiership and then Biarritz Olympique in the first Heineken Cup round, would be tough for any team playing at the top of its game but for Saints, in their current form, I fear two severe thumpings.

 

However, If Saints can use the amount of possession they had yesterday more intelligently, things could be very different.