We can and have played beter this year. We can and have played worse. taking the average of the year so far, you'd have to say that the score was pretty much what you'd expect if both teams had an average day and so it came to pass. Saints ironically took the record off us of most away wins on the spin, and bearing in mind that that's their 16th (?) consecutive away win, it hardly counts as a disgrace. Plus we won at their place so it's a better record v. Saints than most teams will end up with.
Morrison's injury was a huge blow for us. And we will miss him v. Leeds too. This in turn disrupted the available substitutions and is one reason why we ran out of steam faster than Saints.
Until Morrison went off it was a very close contest, although we were in front, and both teams displayed some cracking rugby. The only disappointment was that we couldn't put more on the board when we had all that pressure, and I also couldn't believe that we took the two at that stage. Crazy decision. If we had scored then, or indeed if the disallowed 'try' had stood, it could well have ended up a different game -but we'll never know. personally, though, I thought that on the day, enough of Saints players displayed enough of their best form that they would have beaten us whatever we did, so I'm not too disappointed, they have the overall edge in playing personnel and we needed Morrison and everyone manning the pumps.
Deacon was much better than of late and some of the positional kicking (not all of it) was very good, though why he never tries to make any appreciable distance with penalty kicks to touch remains a mystery, it's almost as if he thinks the extra 20 yards we could get is unimportant.
It was a stifling hot day down on the pitch and it's no surprise that with Morrison off, menzies ended up struggling with the work he was asked to do but I thought he had another very good game. I was worried about Burgess though and can only think he was injured somewhere in the first half as he was spending a lot of time resting behind the play and seemed more shattered than what he was doing in the match would justify.
Whilst making allowances for Morrison's disappearance, and also it being Saints, still the biggest disappointment for me was the way we defended in Saints' purple patch from 25 minutes. Sure when they throw it about like that they will score some against anyone but not conceding points quite as cheaply as that. We have had these defensive collapses before, still at least this time it was a decent team piling on the points in rapido order, not some mugs.
No argument with the refereeing though I was disappointed with the sheer number of head shots and grapples from Saints, they need to cut this out from their game, half the team was at it. No arguments with the key decisions, presumably could have gone either way but the officials were near by and called what they saw so that's fine by me. I would call it a fine example of critical bits of luck, though, like our 40-20 attempt that took a sharp left to stay in play, and Saints' relieving kick for touch and a scrum on our 20, which instead took a sharp right and put Halley under pressure. Rub of the green etc.
No idea of the stats but off the top of my head I reckon both sides made a similar number of mistakes, and our ball security was OK overall, and our discipline was decent too.
Shame the game went simply true to form, but it did, and I'm not too disheartened. You need some things to go your way to beat Saints when you're in our position, and on this occasion they didn't.
Morrison's injury was a huge blow for us. And we will miss him v. Leeds too. This in turn disrupted the available substitutions and is one reason why we ran out of steam faster than Saints.
Until Morrison went off it was a very close contest, although we were in front, and both teams displayed some cracking rugby. The only disappointment was that we couldn't put more on the board when we had all that pressure, and I also couldn't believe that we took the two at that stage. Crazy decision. If we had scored then, or indeed if the disallowed 'try' had stood, it could well have ended up a different game -but we'll never know. personally, though, I thought that on the day, enough of Saints players displayed enough of their best form that they would have beaten us whatever we did, so I'm not too disappointed, they have the overall edge in playing personnel and we needed Morrison and everyone manning the pumps.
Deacon was much better than of late and some of the positional kicking (not all of it) was very good, though why he never tries to make any appreciable distance with penalty kicks to touch remains a mystery, it's almost as if he thinks the extra 20 yards we could get is unimportant.
It was a stifling hot day down on the pitch and it's no surprise that with Morrison off, menzies ended up struggling with the work he was asked to do but I thought he had another very good game. I was worried about Burgess though and can only think he was injured somewhere in the first half as he was spending a lot of time resting behind the play and seemed more shattered than what he was doing in the match would justify.
Whilst making allowances for Morrison's disappearance, and also it being Saints, still the biggest disappointment for me was the way we defended in Saints' purple patch from 25 minutes. Sure when they throw it about like that they will score some against anyone but not conceding points quite as cheaply as that. We have had these defensive collapses before, still at least this time it was a decent team piling on the points in rapido order, not some mugs.
No argument with the refereeing though I was disappointed with the sheer number of head shots and grapples from Saints, they need to cut this out from their game, half the team was at it. No arguments with the key decisions, presumably could have gone either way but the officials were near by and called what they saw so that's fine by me. I would call it a fine example of critical bits of luck, though, like our 40-20 attempt that took a sharp left to stay in play, and Saints' relieving kick for touch and a scrum on our 20, which instead took a sharp right and put Halley under pressure. Rub of the green etc.
No idea of the stats but off the top of my head I reckon both sides made a similar number of mistakes, and our ball security was OK overall, and our discipline was decent too.
Shame the game went simply true to form, but it did, and I'm not too disheartened. You need some things to go your way to beat Saints when you're in our position, and on this occasion they didn't.
