MoTM Montpellier away
By Tim Empson
January 25 2009
Some of my greatest Saints moments have been whilst following them on the continent – and it was something I missed last year. Imagine my delight that we drew two French team an both places I had not been to before. I was thus bitterly disappointed when both of these games were played on Thursday evenings. The only day I could not make!
Montpellier V Saints
Question: Who was your MoTM as Saints sneaked a win away in Montpellier?
So it was that instead of being sat in the South of France I watched the game in the rather different surrounding of an Indian restaurant near Heathrow airport. The thing was I sat down to watch a rugby match but I am not sure that is what Montpellier wanted to do. There were a lot of niggles and eventually the rather inconsistent referee had to send someone from the field. I think the French player was lucky his haymaker didn't connect or the colour of the card might well have been Red.
Saints were playing ok - but were looking to push things rather than let the ball flow. This led to many missed chances. So despite dominating the first half the score line was still rather too close. When Montpellier suddenly decided to play rugby in the second half - scoring two tries - Saints were suddenly behind. In previous years this may have resulted in us capitulating - but not this years model. "We've got Stephen Myler" ensured that we then played the deep in Montpellier territory and you just knew the chances would come. Penalties did ensue and the Monty got a trademark score to put Saints more than a score ahead. In the dying seconds this proved critical as Saints turned over as they searched for a bonus point try an Montpellier used the ball well to score a consolation try with the conversion being the final kick of the game.
So the travelling support went off in search of a pastis and I finished my cobra and went back to my hotel. Let's hope next year we are in the main event as those games are not played on a Thursday!
So who caught the eye?
Mark Easter followed his recent run of good performances and sporting a new no.1 haircut made some trademark breaks and hard yards. He was in third place with 11% of the votes.
In second was local boy Paul Diggin. Paul is going through something of a purple patch and again was a lot of peoples pick with 21.6%. Paul is certainly enjoying himself and is keeping Chris Ashton out of the team on merit.
The winner - and his first win since Sedgley Park at home last year - was the big Tongan. Soane is certainly making his mark this year. He has changed shape under the careful watch of the Hood and Doreen seems to have improved his scrimmaging technique so Soane is now becoming destructive both in the scrum and around the park. Well done Soane got 36% of the votes cast. All together now "what's that coming over the hill - is it a Tongan, is it a Tongan"!
And finally thanks to all 111 of you good people who took the time to vote.
Full Result
Previous Winners
Vote History
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009:01:28:09:34:58 by Phil..
Agree about Soane being massively improved, but Digger is something special this season.
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No alcohol for January. I'm a dryathlete in aid of cancer research.
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I'm intrigued by the variance in the numbers of voters. There are some obviuos reasons i.e. home games get more votes than away (unless televised) but the perceived importance of the game or possibly level of satisfaction with the result appears to be a factor ; tigers top number of votes so far ?
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