Scots on the Rocks

I am writing this on the train home after a short, very wet and very wonderful stay in Glasgow. Warriors were a team who have only lost once at home in all competitions in the past two years - Saints needed to storm Fortress Scotstoun.

And storm they did reducing the fortress to a sandcastle. From 1 to 23 the Saintly team produced a performance to knock your socks off. They took to the field possibly holding a record for the team with the fewest given names distributed around the squad and all bar one player in the replacements had a given name beginning with T! 

Those of us who have followed saints for more years than you care to admit will have had a familiar "here we go again" feeling when Mitch's pass was intercepted and Warriors ran clear to score. But this lot are made of different gravy. In conditions that can only be described as "appalling" or "rather wet and windy" Saints mounted wave after wave (it was very wet) of attack with tries from Courtney Lawes - his first for the club in five years - and two from Tommy Freeman. 

The physicality shown by Saints in both attack and defence is a credit to the squad and the backroom team who have worked on "bulking up" during the pre-season. And Warriors were unable to live with them.

Credit to the forwards and particularly Alex Moon (I'm still traumatised by those pigtails) who swam through and latched on to the ball as the Scots were mauling towards the line in their second half resurgence - a move which has been their scoring "go to" in the past. It was a classic Courtney move from Moonie - he has learned well.

Scotstoun continued to be an unhappy place for Alex Waller, tho. On a  previous visit he had been shown a red card and this time he had to be helped from the field when Scott Cummins dropped on his head from a great height. Interestingly a Warriors supporter near us claimed he had brought it on himself by being underneath him........even his fellow scotsmen were perplexed by his reasoning. Wishing Al a speedy recovery from one of the weirdest rugby incidents in a long time. A yellow card was issued to the falling player when possibly it should have gone to his lifter who just seemed to let him go.....

In the dying seconds Saints continued their links with the manufacturers of high blood pressure medication and defbrillators by pushing for the fourth try when simply kicking the blasted ball off the pitch would have been better. Two penalties later saw Warriors close to getting their fourth try and a losing bonus point - luckily Saints' defence held out, but please, please Saints stop, just stop, doing that!!

Tommy Freeman was Player of the Match but it could have gone to almost any of the Saints boys. Along with a huge medal he also received a cuddly zebra so that was nice….

Just a quick word as to what it meant to the Glasgow supporters - friends of mine had met up with a couple of old friends who are died-in-the wool Warriors supporters. By the end of the game they were communicating through gritted teeth, back in the hotel bar I noted that they hadn't come in  for a drink. "We were lucky that they slowed the car down long enough for us to get out before they sped away" was the reply from my mate. 

Photos from Claire Jones https://www.redhatphoto.co.uk/

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See the faces behind the names!

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