I know how Eeyore feels.......

When it comes to playing Tiggers "I never get my hopes up, so I never get let down" to quote A.A. Milne's perpetually gloomy donkey. And I was at one with that gloomy donkey as the afternoon wore on on Saturday.

Being brutally honest Tigers deserved the win -we just never seemed to be able to play our own game. 

Now I have had chance to breathe however I will try and be a bit more Piglet.....

First of all I must mention Karl Dickson, but only briefly, as the old saying goes if you haven't got anything nice to say then don't say anything, so I won't. Except that I wonder if he needs some sort of counselling for his issues with Saints - we obviously trigger him in someway.

Onto the positives - we fielded a young and fully English qualified starting XV who will take away the hurt from the performance and build on it - and they were up against a team with some gnarly old heads with vast experience in the dark arts of the breakdown and the scrum.. When we did manage to put some phases together there was some outstanding play, culminating in Sam Matevesi's try in the dying minutes.

And the try that was a try but wasn't according to Karl Dickson....scored by 18 year-old Henry Pollock. Eighteen years old......I'll just leave that there.

One of my Tigger supporting friends - I do have some, I see it as a charity work - said he left the ground feeling somewhat deflated, I can't say I blame him if I thought that sort of joyless performance was what I had to watch every week. Let's face it, fellow Saints' supporters, these days when we lose we lose with style and a flourish (usually) and when we win there is so much panache around it even makes Eeyore smile.

Upwards and onwards to Quins next week who came out of their local derby with even fewer positives, should make for an interesting night!

Photos courtesy of Claire Jones - more to be found here: https://www.redhatphoto.co.uk/