NORTHAMPTON SAINTS

THOUGHTS FROM THE CHRON 13/3/08

After seeing the lads rack up two 70+ point scores in rapid succession, Saturdays game at Solihull can at best be described as ‘after the Lord Mayors show’ as Saints failed to get to grips with rock bottom side Pertemps Bees at Sharman’s Cross Road.

With three minutes to go it looked like being the greatest sporting upset since the Israelites beat the Philistines in extra time but this time round just as Pertemps David was about to fling the final stone Goliath Saints skipped in with two late, late scores to not only win the day but to secure a bonus point while denying their hosts one of their own.

Maybe you can look at three games in eight days being too much for any side but in truth Saints never came anywhere near the heights they have been hitting recently and you cannot put that down to fatigue, be it physical or mental, alone.

However the use of the get out of jail card may not all be doom and gloom, the silver lining might well be that it is a very timely kick up the backside and a reminder that there is still plenty of work out there to do if a National Division One title and EDF Trophy double are to be won this season.

The title might be all but sewn up but a display like last Saturday’s in this week’s trophy semi-final will see the Saints surely miss out on the trip to Twickenham.

I would like to think that at the end of the day Saturday was just a bad day at the office, lets hope that wake up call is heeded.

PLYMOUTH 

So it is all down to the West Country for one final time this season (this will be the sixth visit) as Saints take on Plymouth Albion with a place at Twickenham at stake and a chance to take on either Exeter or Nottingham for the EDF Trophy on the 12^th of April. It is a critical two weeks for the Saints. With the Exeter game following on seven days later where victory will assure promotion back to the Guinness Premiership it might be tempting to look too far ahead and lose focus on the other prize on offer. 

Being the level headed people they are I am sure Messrs Mallinder, West and Grayson will not allow this to happen and using the ‘stick’ of last weekends performance I am sure that come kick off on Saturday the team will be focused 100% on getting at tilt a silverware at HQ. That’s not to say that it is going to be easy. Plymouth have nothing but pride to play for in the league but a visit to Twickenham would make their season. In those circumstances I would expect them to throw everything at the Saints but I’ve a sneaking suspicion that the cool, calm, collective visitors will edge it, just, and by Saturday evening we can all look forward to planning a grand day out.

The ELV’S

I touched last week on the new experimental laws being trialled in this years Super14 and how it how polarised people views. It seems everyone wants to lump them all together and either downright condemn them as the devils work or praise them from the rooftops as the best thing since sliced bread.

As I mentioned in the last column once you get past the global bickering and look at the ELV’s individually, there are both pro’s and cons to the proposals.

Of course this depends on how you think the game should be played but from my point of view at least a couple of the laws could make the game better. Some are just tidying up areas where practice already exists like gripping and lifting in the lineout and quick throwins not having to be straight, which has happened marginally for years, these surely should be allowed to become law. Others look to remove areas that have been exploited by some teams in recent years to what some might say the detriment of the game as a whole.  

As much as it was good to see England win in France a couple of weeks back if you were looking at the game impartially you might have noticed how many times England passed back into their own twenty-two to kick long for the lineout. Then of course the clock ticks on while the line is formed, someone stops to retie his boot or adjust his contact lense, and off we go again. Like the backpass to the goalkeeper in football that was outlawed a few years back I believe the banning of the pass back to the twenty two would not only end the stop start we see time and time again nowadays but encourage more open play. Of course the locks out there might not like it as it probably means less lineouts in the long term but it might make a few teams think twice and try to run the ball and counter attack rather than risk an opposition line in their own twenty two. That can only be good for the game. Of course the purists will say that the lineout is part and parcel of the game, well of course they are right and this law will not remove it completely, rather make it a component rather than the be all and end all we saw England adopt in Paris.

The two main bones of contention with the ELV’s seems to be the awarding of free kicks for some infringements where there used to be penalties and what now constitutes a ruck or tackle.

The awarding of free kicks might well suit the Super14 which by its nature has always been a faster free flowing game than we see in the northern hemisphere. There is no threat of relegation in the S14 and apart from qualification for the playoffs, where we seem almost the same old faces every year, nothing else to play for. However how often have we seen in the Guinness Premiership and in Europe where each and every game is important a team quite happily conceding three points when the opposition threaten to be building up to seven. Of course penalties still do exist but I can see a time when if this ELV becomes law that teams will get wise as to what infringement to commit and when. Yes the opposition still has the ball but a halt in the game and the all of a sudden ‘injured’ player going down gives you time to reorganize your defence with not a point conceded.

As for the ruck and tackle area well I still cannot quite get my mind round not only the ELV but also what they are trying to achieve. I can see some of you purists almost passing out when you read this but when the ELV’s were first mooted the ruck as we know it was to be completely removed from the game. Tackles and rucks were to be one and the same and the whole raft of laws that defines what it and what is not a ruck were to be removed. A couple of games in and they realized each breakdown almost became a free for all with bodies everywhere so the ELV was modified to suit. Once again when the S14 coaches were asked for their views it was altered again.

However as a comprimise you now have a mixture of the old and the new and what was intended as clearing up a grey area that was by and large at the discretion of the referee, who seem to interpret everything differently in this area, you now have something  that up till now in the handful of S14 games I have seen looks unworkable, perhaps even more so when you get the nitty gritty games we get up here.

So, some good some bad but I do hope some serious thought goes into this before the ELV’s are adopted as on the face of it some laws that were supposed to simplify the game look like making it even harder to comprehend.

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