Northampton Saints V Edinburgh Rugby - Pre season friendly

Pre-Season Friendly
Franklin's Gardens
Friday, August 23rd, 2013
Kick off 7:30pm

Saints
15 Ben FODEN
14 Ken PISI
13 George PISI
12 Luther BURRELL
11 Jamie ELLIOTT
10 Stephen MYLER
9 Lee DICKSON
1 Alex WALLER
2 Mike HAYWOOD
3 Tom MERCEY
4 Courtney LAWES
5 Christian DAY
6 Calum CLARK
7 Tom WOOD (capt)
8 GJ VAN VELZE

Replacements
Ross MCMILLAN
Alex CORBISIERO
Gareth DENMAN
James CRAIG
Ben NUTLEY
Phil DOWSON
Sam DICKINSON
Ryan GLYNN
Sam OLVER
James WILSON
Tom STEPHENSON
George NORTH
Tom COLLINS
Paul DIGGIN


Edinburgh

15 Greig Tonks
14 Dougie Fife
13 Nick De Luca
12 Matt Scott
11 Lee Jones
10 Piers Francis
9 Greig Laidlaw CAPTAIN
1 Alasdair Dickinson
2 Ross Ford
3 WP Nel
4 Grant Gilchrist
5 Izak van der Westhuizen
6 Sean Cox
7 Roddy Grant
8 David Denton

Substitutes

16 Aleki Lutui
17 Lewis Niven
18 Geoff Cross
19 Ollie Atkins
20 Hamish Watson
21 Sean Kennedy
22 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne
23 Jack Cuthbert
24 Dimitri Basilaia
25 Tom Brown

Both sides name strong teams for the opening pre-season friendly of the year.  Should be an interesting battle between an established and powerful Saints team, and an Edinburgh team in transition with a new coach and new players.  Plenty internationalists on show and the Saints pack will pose a stern test for the Edinburgh 8 looking to impose a more physical presence on games.

From an Edinburgh point of view I'm firstly glad to see Corbs and North are on the bench, but also looking forward to seeing how my team gets on. High hopes for Issak VDV at 5 and looking forward to seeing Ollie Aktins (another big lock) off the bench.  Would have rather seen the mental Georgian Basilaia at 6 instead of Cox, but Cox adds leadership and the odd yellow card!

Will be good to hear the thoughts of Saints fans regarding your lineup and the game.

Let's just hope we don't end up seeing a Lee Jones V George North matchup  

Im guessing the James Craig on the Northampton bench is not the one Im thinking of!

Pat_Mustard wrote:Im guessing the James Craig on the Northampton bench is not the one Im thinking of!

Who are you thinking of like?

Pat_Mustard wrote:Im guessing the James Craig on the Northampton bench is not the one Im thinking of!

Who are you thinking of like?

James Craig is a product of the Leeds academy and plays lock or 6. Had a great season a couple of years back but was mostly injured last season. Think he's about 24 and a former England age grade player.

One of Scotlands mediocre backs from about 10 years ago. You can see how memorable he was!

You mean Andy Craig??

Nope - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/scotland/2998947/Craig-waits-in-wings-for-Scotland.html

Actually my brain might have combined James and Andy into one super-back. Just ignore me.

Any Saints fans on V2?

Pat_Mustard wrote:One of Scotlands mediocre backs from about 10 years ago. You can see how memorable he was!

I remember James Craig (the winger, as opposed to Andy Craig the centre).

James Craig was lightening fast, quickest Scotland back I can remember, perhaps Thom Evans aside. Unfortunately he was chronically mishandled by Scotland and thrown to the wolves (Joe Roff to be precise) on debut at Murrayfield against Australia. The entire team was rubbish, James Craig horribly exposed on the wing, and subsequently discarded.

Could have been a very useful winger, but McGeechan (and Richie Dixon) had a nightmare period in charge and went for solid slow options rather than developing Scotland as an attacking force (see Hodge/Laney at 10 rather than Paterson/Townsend).

Back to this fixture, I'm still traumatised after we were totally pounded in the same friendly last season, with all the hopes and expectations from the prior year being utterly shattered. One of the Pisi's was outstanding that day, and Burrell against Atiga was a dreadful mismatch.

Fingers crossed for a better showing this time around. We need to hit the ground running this season.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Any Saints fans on V2?

2 I think.

Is this televised or on the radio at all?

Not a bad team for the Saints, about 60% of what I think will be in JM's mind as his first 15 come the start of the season. All of the starting line up are existing Saints players so plenty of familiarity there.

Actually thought Corbisiero and North wouldn't feature quite yet after their summer exploits.

Be interesting to see where North comes on. Mallinder likes a big boshing 12 and the two wings Ken Pisi and Jamie Elliott were very good last season. Suspect Burrell's form will be a deciding factor in that debate.

Scott has taken a knock, let me guess was it a Lawes late tackle?

It's taken 31 minutes but Laidlaw gets the first points of the game. 3-0 up

It sounds like Scott took his knock in contact on a crash-ball. Seemed to be doing well.

I'm pretty sure Lawes was responsible though! 

formerly known as Sam wrote:Be interesting to see where North comes on. Mallinder likes a big boshing 12 and the two wings Ken Pisi and Jamie Elliott were very good last season. Suspect Burrell's form will be a deciding factor in that debate.

I feel Ken Pisi is the one most at risk at the start of the season, he wasn't that good last year and was just a bench / travelling match day squad player for a decent amount time after returning from an injury. Think North & Elliott will be the starting wings comes the season but that North will move to the centers as the season progresses (injury permitting).

Speaking of Ken Pisi he just got the first try of the game (7-3)

Which Pisi?

Jamie Elliot is a top young talent but it was he and not Ken Pisi that gave way when a hooker needed to come on in the final after Hartley's moment of stupidity. I'd go Elliot personally but I get the impression that Ken Pisi is preferred for the big games by Mallinder.

Our 35 year old Tongan hooker takes the field  

Final score Northampton 24 - 6 Edinburgh.
A big improvement on last season, we scored twice as many points and conceded 30 fewer!

True Glove, last years friendlies were pretty damn bad. Can't believe score was 0-3 at halftime. Be interesting to hear what Solomons thoughts are

Did Scott get an injury?

That'd be a big blow for Edinburgh given current personnel.

Bad final scoreline, but sounds like a physical game that we were right in until the last 20 or so.

Good blow out, would have nice to have some tries and let's hope there's no injuries

Some tweets from David Denton...

@dentweezy: Gutted that more of you didn't get to watch that. Misleading score line was a huge physical effort from all. Huge improvement from last year

@dentweezy: A lot still to work on. Defence coach arrives Monday, one more warm up game then we're under way

Edinburgh tweets made it sound like Denton had a storming game, which is good to hear.

Bodes well that the first XV were very competitive, and the tries seemed to come when the subs came on. With the new guys coming in this will hopefully make our bench a lot stronger.

Of course if anyone was there I'm sure they could confirm or deny that!

Just read the tweets - actually looks like they scored the 2 tries with ten mins to go after the entire bench was pretty much brought on.

Speaking of social media, good to see that Edinburgh's facebook 'fans' took the defeat well!

They are a bunch of absolute douche bags - they really are.

Just read the Facebook comments. Cretins!

I've tried for ages to get the word 'cretin' through the profanity filter but never managed it.
Maybe its use is acceptable in the context of describing Edinburgh fans.

We're not all like that GC - I was glad to see I wasn't the only one saying people need to stop over reacting and actually read what happened in the game. My one got the most likes though! 

RDW_Scotland wrote:We're not all like that GC - I was glad to see I wasn't the only one saying people need to stop over reacting and actually read what happened in the game. My one got the most likes though! 

I am an Edinburgh fan too RDW - be in no doubt. Even if I am one pair of maroon chinos short of being a full fanatic. Completely agree with your assessment of the weird bunch on Bookface. Who the hell are they? They certainly don't post here.

They must be football fans who tag along - clearly aren't as knowledgeable about rugby as the likes of us!  

Eejits. I love the one saying the result is a bad omen after a week's intensive training. Obviously someone who has never done intensive training in their life, and thinks a week with a new coach constitutes sufficient pre-season training to suddenly become world beaters...

Just seen that Perry Parker liked my comment - looks like they players go on there too!

For some reason, facebook is where the most fickle fans are. Don't know why.

It's strange, cause its not anonymous like here!

RDW_Scotland wrote:Just seen that Perry Parker liked my comment - looks like they players go on there too!

What did you say?
 
RDW: "Everyone else thinks you're a donkey and a bit of a girl, Perry, but I think that they're wrong."
 
Perry likes this.