HC: Northampton Saints vs Border Reivers Preview

By Nick Batley
October 27 2006

Saints welcome Border Reivers to FG this Saturday as they bid to kick-start their Heineken Cup Campaign. St Nick looks ahead...

HEINEKEN CUP

NORTHAMPTON SAINTS vs. BORDER REIVERS

Franklin's Gardens, 28th October 2006. 3.30pm

Borders Head South of the Border

 

Five weeks ago, the Saints had just won against Bath fairly convincingly and were sitting fourth in the table. Five games down the line, the Saints are out of the EDF Energy Cup, seventh in the Premiership and third in their pool in this week’s competition. It may all seem like doom and gloom as half our squad seems to have died over the past month or so. But it’s not all that bad.

 

The Saints put in a good performance against Biarritz, and Leicester the week before. Despite letting in a try bonus point in the rather small space of 45 minutes, the Saints started to fire on; by camping on the Biarritz try line. In the end, they came damn close to getting a bonus point, despite being down to our 19^th choice kicker and half our squad being replaced in the last twenty minutes. This is an important game and is a must win game if we want any chance to win the group or to finish runners-up and get into the quarterfinals.

 

Also, we’re back at home and up against the Borders, a Scottish outfit who squeezed into the Cup this year. I have never been to their ground, so I can’t really praise or complain about their ground or fans or food, but I do know that they annihilated Parma last week, beat the Irish national team Leinster and nearly triumphed over current Heineken champions Munster. It’s also the return to the Gardens of one Gregor Townsend, our famous ex fly-half who enjoyed passing to no-one in particular. However, he was and still is a great fly-half, being Scotland’s most experienced fly-half with a total of 82 caps.

 

Also in the Borders squad is Chris Cusiter, one of the many scrum-halves contesting for the Scottish national side and, ooh look, another ex-Saint, Ross Beattie. It seems that the Galashiels club is some sort of retirement home for ex-Northamptonites with Craig Moir being there a few years ago, and I’m sure Wee Tam will end up there fairly soon.

 

The last time these two sides met, it in the 2003/4 season and the Saints, to be honest, ran the Scottish side off the park. Twice. Is this going to be a repeat? I think it might be. The Borders may have beaten Leinster (just) and Parma, but the Irish team didn’t really turn up, and Parma are the least experienced side in the competition. The way we’re playing, and if we have a few more of our players back, we could easily get four tries past them. 33-10 anybody?

 

Come On You Saints…

 

N.B. If you aren’t taking part in the Saints with Heart walks this weekend, please, please, please donate a bit of money to one of the many bucket shakers. It’s all for a good cause.