Saturday throwback nightmare

When I was a young child Saturday afternoons were spent playing with my friends at the rugby club then home for sausage sandwiches and an early evening treat of watching Dr Who – mainly from behind the settee - if only we had realised you just had to go upstairs and the daleks couldn't get you.

This week I couldn’t manage to get down to Saints to meet my friends – a rather big birthday of a family member precluded that – a huge lunch meant no sausage sandwiches – but I did end up watching the television from behind the settee as Saints fell apart and no amount of going up and down stairs could potect us.

It does seem to be a pattern that the game when we get our returning internationals involves a less than optimum display. This, combined with Gloucester hurting from their record defeat last season and last week’s defeat at home to Exeter led to a miserable afternoon for the Saintly throng.

Losing Fin Smith in the first quarter didn’t help Saints rhythm but even so the team were lacking the edge that has turned defeat into victory in the past and some daft errors led to Gloucester taking all the spoils and Saints with nothing.

Gloucester took an early lead with a try by full-back Carreras who was to be a right nuisance for Saints during the afternoon.

Saints hit back with a lovely try from Furbs and even went into the lead as Hutch converted. Special mention to George Hendy who put a superb defensive shift before going off for an HIA and not returning.

Zach Mercer was on the end of a Cherry and White move from an intercept – a pass from Saints so loose and telegraphed even I could see it from behind the settee! That man Carreras then got in on the action again with another try and the West countrymen trotted down the tunnel with a healthy 7-22 lead.

The second half started brightly with a converted try from departing No 8 Juarno Augustus and the boot of Hutch.

Mr Angry, Ollie Sleightholme then thought he’d notched up a score only for the TMO to decide that he had knocked-on in the act of scoring so it was chalked off.

Another trip to the TMO and another disallowed try for a forward pass kept Saints score down to 14 – which coincidently was the same number of players on the pitch for Gloucester at the time.

With seven minutes to go Saints got into losing bonus point territory with a penalty but this was wiped out by the boot of Carreras following a lineout infringement.

There were a couple of bright spots, the long-awaited return of Alex Mitchell being the brightest of them and Furbs brilliance for his try in the first half. I have a couple of soft spots in mind for the ref and the TMO but probably least said soonest mended.

I think we just need to put that performance behind us and push on to Europe with a visit from Castres. It seemed that we were practically twinned with them at one time before Clermont became our constant French opponents.

Here’s hoping that Fin and George Hendy recover from their knocks and Mitch has no ill effects from his off the bench appearance and we can go all guns blazing into Europe!

Pictures, as ever provided by Claire Jones at Redhat Photo. More can be found here. And to listen to Claire and Lis talk about things Saintly and other rugby stuff find LadiesWotPod on Youtube, Spotify or other podcast platforms. For Facebook chat about Saints take a look at Saints Sinners group.