A game of two halves and two Smiths
Wow! That was certainly a game of two halves! I don’t know what was said or done to the lads at Half time but it certainly made a difference.
The evening started with such promise as The Gardens was briefly turned into a light show by all the good folk who had downloaded the app pointing their phones at the pitch. It was a great effect when viewed from the Church’s stand. Shame the stadium lights couldn’t have been dimmed but I understand that wasn’t possible. I’d personally like to hear some more inspiring music too – O Fortuna from Carmina Burana would be spine tingling with the lights in my opinion.
The opening second of the game were more spine chilling than tingling as Quins made the most of a penalty from the first break-down after the kick off and a driving maul from the ensuing line-out saw the Quins hooker over the line. Their Smith was on target with the conversion and Saints were ominously 0-7 down within the first three minutes.
But Saints struck back after being awarded a penalty when Quin’s Smith ran the ball across the posts. Saints went for a “tap and go” move which paid off when Manny Iyogun barrelled over the line – Our Smith converted. And there were still 75 minutes to go!
Quins went on the attack again but a brilliant defensive move from Tommy Freeman saw them held up over the line and we could breath again. A major blow came for Saints when lock Alex Coles appeared to get crushed in a maul and had to leave the field in some obvious pain – get well soon Colesy.
Another Quins attack was snuffed out by Curtis Langdon who made an absolute nuisance of himself for the whole time he was on the pitch – possibly making a point to Steve Borthwick who had taken the mystifying decision to leave him out of the England training squad this week.
But Quins tails were up and they launched wave after wave attack, aided and abetted by Saints’ perceived indiscipline as referee Mathew Carley awarded them penalty after penalty. Smith of the Marcus kind showed his talent with some delightful footwork to wrong foot Freemo and dive over the line – he was also on target with the conversion.
Against the run of play Saints came back with some smart moves from Fin, Furbs and Kemeny who put Ollie Sleightholme into a scoring position which he grasped with alacrity – Fin kicked the conversion.
The restarts were, quite frankly, dreadful from Saints and failure to deal with them led to another penalty and Quins launched themselves forward – including a forward pass – ending in Smith M scoring in the corner. Mr Carley refused to review the build-up and even seemed to be amused at the barrage of boos that came his way. Smith M failed with the conversion.
More penalties went against Saints and Quin’s Smith had a successful kick for goal to take the score to 14-22 at the break.
The second half came and Saints were playing down the slope – and they came at Quins hard and fast. Within three minutes of the restart it appeared that Sleights, unually had butchered a scoring opportunity in the corner. When the officials looked at it the reason why he had parted company with the ball was because someone had tackled him round his ears. The outcome was a yellow card for the errant Quin and a penalty try for Saints.
It was Quins turn to defend which they did very well for the next eight minutes or so but eventually the dam broke and Sam Graham launched himself from short range to score.
And then there was a moment of pure Saints magic a classic Furbs break saw him offload to Ollie Sleights who was not going to be deprived this time! Unusually our Smith missed the conversion.
Saints brought on a raft of replacements including U20's World Cup star Henry Pollock for his home premiership debut. He makes a bundle of energy seem pedestrian and caused Quins some consternation as he rampaged around. All the replacements brought renewed energy onto the pitch - gone are the days when bringing on replacements saw the game fall to pieces, the subs slot in seamlessly these days!
Quins cut the deficit to four with another try but Saints held on again and bagged the full five points for the first time this season.
It’s off to Pooh Corner next week to try and continue the winning run. There was heartbreak there last year, mainly thanks to the whistle of a certain K Dickson – here’s hoping we can do the job this season. Have fun to those who are travelling. There are still some seats on the Supporters Club bus, book them here: Coach bookings.
Photographs are provided by Claire Jones at RedHat Photography and if you would like to hear or see the Claire and Lis, plus guests, discussing all things Saintly hop over to Ladies Wot Pod on Youtube or Spotify. And for more discussions of Saintly things there's always: SaintsSinners on Facebook.

Centre Rory Hutchinson who seems to have found an extra gear this season - another top notch performance

Heart, pride, passion - all in one man - well deserved Player of the Match Sam Graham

Captain Furbs - helping to uphold Fortress Franklins and always leading by example.

Always dangerous with ball in hand - even more so if someone has made him angry. Two tries for Ollie!

Our Smith - of the Fin kind. Aren't we lucky to have him?

Rising star - Henry Pollock. Whirling dervish or Tasmanian Devil - you choose......