Leicester vs Northampton - Sunday

[Epaminondas Pules]

Better. Defence still an issue and thankfully Saints were a mess, coupled with Nadolo making some superb decision. I will say on a few occasions we actually rushed and more importantly on the outside to close Saints wide ball. It didn’t happen all the time, but there was some semblance of plan in some defensive plays.

Was pleased with Steward, and am really glad he got to try some high balls under pressure and spilled them. That’s how you learn. You can see he is starting to get more and more into games. It’ll take time but I think we will see some of the attacking joins we saw from him at school and Tigers U18s.

My life Saints looked off colour. Very formulaic. Seemed a little but by numbers which is not their way.

And hats off to Lenny. 250 is an outstanding achievement.

[fivepointer]

Paul Hill's try was the highlight. Great to see a prop galloping in from 25 meters out.
Tigers will be relieved to get a win. They weren't particularly good, but its a measure of how desperately poor Saints were that it was enough.
I'm really not sure what has happened at Saints to see them fall apart the way they have, both prior to the break and on resumption.
Good coach with a talented group of players producing rubbish like this?

[Scrumhead]

Good coaches in plural ... it’s not long ago that Vesty and Ferguson were getting the plaudits alongside Boyd.

I am also a bit bemused and I can only put it down to the ‘mix and match’ approach Boyd has taken. Where other teams have taken a bit more of a boom or bust type approach, Saints have gone for 50/50 squads that haven’t been good enough.

Obviously this is an extreme scenario that hopefully won’t exist in a regular season. A full strength Saints side should be capable of giving anyone a game. Hopefully they’re back to being competitive next season.

[Puja]

Good result and a solid performance, helped a bit by Saints being rubbish and an early injury meaning scrums were mostly Cole torturing a child for 40 minutes. Good to get some confidence back into the group though and will take wins wherever they come.

We weren't helped by risible discipline - Wells was lucky not to get a second yellow for instigating that shoving match towards the end. And I don't understand our insistence on kicking everything - Ben Youngs was box-kicking down the left wing like we had May chasing, instead of Nadolo who (for all his many other virtues) was just listlessly lumbering after them.

I feel like there's a few players in that squad that Aled Walters needs to get to grips with. Nadolo still doesn't look at his peak and Leatigaga's work outside the setpiece can best be described as energy-efficient - he's very useful when a ruck is near him, but he expects delivery rather than going to it.

Puja

[FKAS]

Better. Defence still an issue and thankfully Saints were a mess, coupled with Nadolo making some superb decision. I will say on a few occasions we actually rushed and more importantly on the outside to close Saints wide ball. It didn’t happen all the time, but there was some semblance of plan in some defensive plays.

Was pleased with Steward, and am really glad he got to try some high balls under pressure and spilled them. That’s how you learn. You can see he is starting to get more and more into games. It’ll take time but I think we will see some of the attacking joins we saw from him at school and Tigers U18s.

My life Saints looked off colour. Very formulaic. Seemed a little but by numbers which is not their way.

And hats off to Lenny. 250 is an outstanding achievement.

I'd disagree on defence. Outside of the lineout that's the best defence we've had for some time. The issue wasn't with the system it was with indiscipline particularly from Harry Wells who was lucky to finish the game and I think had Saints not scored at the death he might have picked up a second yellow for offside. Nadolo was particularly brilliant in the tactic of coming up and in to cut off the outside channel.

Agree on Steward. Excellent young player who's showing more and more of his skill set. You are right he could do with working on coming onto the high ball in traffic. He also needs to work on his footwork a little, he's too used to gliding or powering past players at age grade. He needs more footwork in order to beat the first tackler, if he can get that down then he'll step up from club player to international player.