Northampton Saints: Basic errors cost Saints as they throw away victory chance at Kingsholm
Pictures by Linda Dawson
JIM MALLINDER was left frustrated at the amount of basic errors that cost Saints victory at Gloucester.
Most of them came in a first half where Saints were slow to get out of the blocks and Gloucester were quite the opposite.
Mallinder knew he had a pack that could devour Gloucester and they did in the second half, but penalties and that bad start cost them.
A point at Kingsholm is not the end of the world, it is a place after all where European kings Toulouse lost as well, but the frustration for Mallinder was that the second-half display showed it should have been more.
And it was the restarts that really cost Saints. Just as the Heineken Cup defeat to Munster at Milton Keynes could be traced to missing restarts, so could the loss at Kingsholm.
Mallinder said: “There were a couple of restarts we should have taken and we didn’t and the one just before half-time was crucial. We had fought our way back into the game and to concede the restart and that try was a bad time to do so.”
And the first miss came right at the kick-off. Courtney Lawes has been out of the side for six weeks because of an injury to a knee that still had some strapping on it, so some rustiness was understandable.
Gloucester’s Freddie Burns tested him out straight away with a steepling kick-off that Lawes and his pod thought they had lined up, but it sailed over his hands. Gloucester collected it and immediately got their dangerous backs into the game through Samoan Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu, who found a weak link in Ryan Lamb.
Twice he stepped round him or through him early on and then Lamb committed defensive hari-kiri. With an overlap looming, Lamb charged out to cut Gloucester off, but completely missed Charlie Sharples who sped over from 30-metres after seven minutes.
There was plenty of time and opportunities for Saints to make up for missing the kick-off but the error was compounded by more.
Lawes had a glorious chance to make up for his mistake as Roger Wilson tapped a penalty to send the England lock playing in the back row hurtling up the left flank.
He ignored Vasily Artemyev on his outside and went for the line, only to drop the ball when reaching for it.
It was a big miss and Saints were also missing their scrum dominance. The young Gloucester front row succeeded in messing things up or hanging in there for the first half, with Saints also jumping the gun a couple of times to squander promising positions.
And when they did get the squeeze on to win a penalty, Lamb missed it. Mallinder admitted penalties were a problem for Saints as they panicked too many times to slow up dangerous Gloucester attack.
“There are always a few penalties that you will question,” said Mallinder. “But I think we did give away a few silly ones, we need to be more accurate in that area.”
Back on his old stomping ground Lamb didn’t have a happy first half, but he landed three kicks to get Saints within striking distance at 13-9 only for another restart to go awry.
Jonny May made the schoolboy error of racing across the pitch, but instead of finding trouble he found Sharples free. The big full-back has huge pace and an innocent inventiveness. He set Sharples off for the line and though he was hauled down short, hooker Darren Dawidiuk picked up to score.
Saints’ forwards got on top in the second half, Soane Tonga’uiha being driven over from a lineout and with the visitors on the front foot their Samoan centre started to play.
George Pisi put in some electric bursts and got his hands free for one offload that took out three defenders.
And the summer signing from Clermont was on hand for a try that brought Saints level.
It came from a nicked lineout and saw Pisi throw an outrageous dummy before diving over.
Stephen Myler missed the conversion to leave it at 24-24 with 10 minutes to go, but when Martin Roberts was charged down for a second time in the match Gloucester put the pressure on to win a penalty.
Burns hit the post but Saints coughed up another penalty right in front and the Gloucester fly-half didn’t make the same mistake.
Email to a friend
Print this page- BREAKING NEWS: Tributes paid to Niamh Curry as brave five-year-old loses battle against cancer
- BREAKING NEWS: Pensioner dies after collision at Northampton shopping centre
- Man tied to tree and beaten on Northampton Racecourse
- BREAKING NEWS: Woman’s body found after ‘suicide’ in Northampton hotel room
- BREAKING NEWS: Seven-year-old boy dies following house fire in Northamptonshire
- Staff strike at Northampton school over academy plans forces closure
- Northampton binmen at ‘breaking point’
- Saints’ stadium plans get support as long as traffic issues solved
- Eastern European pupils helping school standards across Northampton
- Exclusive: PM David Cameron says Northamptonshire Police Commissioner role is “a big job for a big local figure”
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Northampton
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: East
Your view
Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.