Shields: Saints need to keep Mark Regan quiet
Paul Shields believes if Northampton Saints can keep wind-up merchant Mark Regan quiet – literally – then they will be halfway to registering their first Premiership away win of the season.
After a six-week break Saints are back in Premiership action at the Memorial Stadium in a game that even director of rugby Jim Mallinder has labelled as "key".
He may have slapped down the moniker "season-defining" as "sensationalist journalism" but in Mallinder's hyperbole-free world admitting the game is key is significant.
A fourth defeat on the road will not only drag Saints well and truly into the relegation battle, but the alarm bells will start ringing about their away form.
If they can't win at the most under-resourced side in the league, who have no wins to their name after five games, where can they win?
But a look at those three trips away will bring more than a crumb of comfort to Saints supporters. Saints led at half-time in all three at Newcastle, Saracens and Leicester, but just couldn't quite nail it. In fact they didn't even register a bonus point in any of them.
Saints know they will have the kitchen sink thrown at them tomorrow. Bristol are desperate and will be calling on their big grizzly forward pack led by Saints fans' arch-enemy Regan to put in the kind of performance that drove them to the top echelons of the Premiership two seasons ago.
Shields takes over from Dylan Hartley at hooker while he is on England duty, which Regan will no doubt be disappointed about. The former England hooker will have been thinking he would have had more chance of winding up Hartley than the quiet Irishman.
Shields is looking forward to shutting up Regan, who has been booed by Saints fans ever since he admitted on TV that he exaggerated the head injury caused by Mark Robinson's stamp to get the scrum-half sin-binned. Shields, though, will simply do what any parent does to a child having a tantrum – ignore them.
"I remember watching him for the Lions back in 1997, he's been around for ages. He is one of those guys you like to test yourself against," said Shields.
"He is a very good scrummaging hooker and he is quite chirpy as well. He really likes to get in your ear, so you really have to focus on the whole game otherwise he will get on top of you."
Shields took on Regan in the EDF Energy Cup clash that Saints won and in an A international in 2003, so knows how to handle the Bristolian's chirping.
"I really enjoyed playing against him, he is a really good test," said Shields.
"He will try anything, he will try to get inside your head. The key for me is just to ignore him and concentrate on my own job. If you let him in and he realises he has got a bite, he will keep coming, keep asking questions and keep chirping, so I will just worry about myself and let him worry about himself.
"When you have got a player like that, if they are not getting a reaction from you then they will give up.
"If that is what helps them and they see they are getting on top of you with comments then they start to win, but if he is getting nowhere then eventually he will give up and have to worry about his own game. Then when he starts to lose, that's a big focus of his game gone. If I can stop him getting into our front row's heads then I think it will give us an advantage."
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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