The Full Monty XI: Leicester (AngloWelsh Doodah)

By Monty Masters
August 1 2006

We reach Decemeber and Monty reports on Saints' clash with the Tigers in the waste of space AngloWelsh doodah wotsit...

 

SAINTS FREE TO CONCENTRATE ON THE LEAGUE

A relieved Northampton were finally beaten by an inferior Leicester freeing them to concentrate on matters less glamorous. The hapless Tigers took the best part of sixty minutes to seal the deal despite Saints best efforts to make them look

good.

It's lovely visiting Welford Road, reminds me of my Nan's house. I hope they never modernise the place it would lose it's character. It also appeared that Tigers had been sitting to close to the fire as the drowsily played through the

Opening minutes.

To make a show of things Saints decided to win the first half. They had 90% territory and 88% possession so it was a bit of a breeze to rack up eleven points from Mark Robinson's try and Reihana's penalties.

Then came the first moment of genius. Goode, quite the chubbiest ten since Mr Barnes retired, played an obvious run-around overlap. Rudd, the Saints winger faked panic and ran out of alignment whilst Cohen and Davies comically ran into each other. Lloyd celebrated like he'd scored the try of his life.

In the second half the Tigers fat boys went through 33 phases inches from the Saints line before they finally managed to score a second try. Finally Tigers were winning. Unfortunately Saints the entertainers forgot themselves and from the restart took just 2.7 seconds to regain the lead. Rudd gathering Spencer's chip to plough home leaving a fine example of ridge and furrow.

Budge was clearly blowing his stack at this point, terrified at the thought of two more games in a jam packed season. He pulled Thompson off, his throwing is too good and the lineout had been far too secure. The young man Hartley did a great job miss throwing the ball on his first few attempts to really give Leicester the idea they could win the game. At this point the home crowd woke with a start and decided to cheer on their team.

Only King Carlos could create the next try. He set himself a perfect target to be charged down and the Tigers scampered in for their number three.

Terrific. The seeds were sown. Goode and the boys caught on that they needed to kick the corners and then set up camp, they did this with predictable precision and then came the phases. But still they could not get the ball down. Finally Cohen had a word with referee White and he decided to give Lloyd his second try on merit. After all grounding really is only a formality.

All that was left was for Saints to make it look good. They toiled away in the dying minutes, carefully selecting time wasting scrums rather than tap and go's as the 80 minutes came up.

Job done no more cup to worry about.

Post match Budge stated that he was delighted with the performance:

"first half we held their mauls with ease, won every lineout, scrummed them off the park and scored more points. Last time we were here we scored nil, mathematically that's an infinite improvement. If a marathon runner made that sort of improvement he'd win the Olympic 100m"