Saints struggle with
stars away I
With Bruce Cox Pictures by Roger Cooper
’m writing this after a weekend of international rugby which saw Northampton’s star winger, Chris Ashton run in an amazing four tries in England’s demolition of Italy that put them on top of the Six Nations points standings. Halfway through the championship England look like the most organised
team in the series after a clinically efficient win over Wales and the steamrollering of Italy. Both Ireland and France looked erratic in their games but neither can be discounted on their day. Scotland was awful against Wales but actually looked good in defeat as the team put three tries past France in Paris. Any one of these three rivals could spring a surprise on England when they meet in the remaining fixtures so there’s no room for complacency but, even so, England look like the in-form team so far. A great deal of the new-found scoring ability can be credited to the
Northampton Saints quartet of winger, Chris Ashton, full-back Ben Foden, hooker, Dylan Hartley and Saints recent signing from Worcester, the flanker Tom Wood. They are all relative newcomers to the England squad but the first three have all made a real contribution since becoming regular ‘starters’ in 2010 and Tom was a stand-out forward both in his 2011 Six Nations debut against Wales and in the next match against Italy. Both Foden and Ashton, in fact, are among the 18 players nominated by the International Rugby Board in its ‘Try of the Year’ competition for 2010 – Ben for his score against France in the 2010 Six Nations and Chris for his breakaway try in England’s emphatic defeat of Australia in their autumn test match.
By the way, there might be still time to add your vote in this competition...
just go to
www.irb.com/history/awards to check out the nominated tries and then e-mail your vote to
votetry@irb.com . And if Chris does get the nod, then it’s two in a row because he won the award in the 2009/10 season!
Aviva Premiership S
adly, there is a downside to all of this for Saints fans, despite everyone obviously being proud of the team’s contribution
to England success. And that’s the fact that Aviva Premiership matches continue throughout the Six Nations period and Northampton have to now make do without several of their leading players. As well as the England quartet being absent, Northampton’s
other star winger Joe Ansbro is now a starter with the Scotland team, and adding some much-needed speed and agility to its attack. Take in the fact that second row star Courtney Lawes is injured – and would have certainly been in the England team if fit - and that’s a total of no less than six of Saints’ best players unavailable for duty in the Premiership. No wonder that while the English fans were still celebrating Ashton’s efforts at Twickenham, the Saints were being battered 29-15 by a full-strength squad from Saracens. This is exactly the same kind of problem that Wasps used to
face a few years ago when as many of eight of their top players were absent on Six Nations duty for the best part of two months, It certainly doesn’t seem fair that a club which has the ability
10 March 2011
to develop top international players should suffer in Premiership potential as a result but our crowded professional rugby calendar makes it difficult to see a way around it. Strength in depth is the only
cure...and that’s what Leicester
Tigers seem to have despite its half-back pairing of Ben Youngs and Toby Flood being the chosen ones for England in those positions and prop Dan Cole now preferred by England coach Martin Johnson as a first-choice front-row man. Also in the England ‘elite’ squad are hooker George Chuter and lock, Louis Deacon, while Italian/Argentinian, Marco Castrogiovanni, is a fixture in the Italy squad. All credit to Tigers then for taking the opportunity to move up
to the top of the Premiership table at the time of writing. They have 48 points compared to the 42 of Saracens, 38 for Saints, the 36 scored by Gloucester, 35 for London Irish and 34 for Wasps. The whole aim of scoring points in the Premiership league season, of course, is to be in the top four at season’s end and so make the ‘play-offs’ for the actual Championship Final. Then it all begins again and any one of the top four could end up as Premiership Champions. So we in the Four Shires currently have the mouth-watering
prospect of the semi- finals definitely being contested by clubs within easy reach. All six of the clubs with their eyes on the prize are within an hour’s drive of the centre of our circulation area.
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