Northampton Saints v Castres Olympique

[Teh Mite]

Franklins Gardens, 8/10/2010 @ 20:00 (Sky Sports)

 

[tinchy17]

Well, Castres aren't great to be brutally honest, so I go for Northampton to win

 

[Teh Mite]

Northampton

15 Ben Foden
14 Chris Ashton
13 Jon Clarke
12 James Downey
11 Bruce Reihana
10 Shane Geraghty
9 Lee Dickson
1 Soane Tonga'uiha
2 Dylan Hartley (capt)
3 Brian Mujati
4 Courtney Lawes
5 Christian Day
6 Phil Dowson
7 Tom Wood
8 Roger Wilson

Replacements
16 Brett Sharman
17 Regardt Dreyer
18 Euan Murray
19 Calum Clark
20 Mark Easter
21 Ryan Powell
22 Stephen Myler
23 Joe Ansbro

Castres

1 Yannick FORESTIER
2 Matthieu BONELLO
3 Daniel SAAYMAN
4 Scott MURRAY
5 Iosefa TEKORI
6 Ibrahim DIARRA
7 Yannick CABALLERO
8 Christopher MASOE (C)
9 Sébastien TILLOUS BORDE
10 Cameron MCINTYRE
11 Vincent INIGO
12 Romain CABANNES
13 Pierre- Manuel GARCIA
14 Romain MARTIAL
15 Pierre BERNARD

Subs:
16 Benjamin KAYSER
17 Michaël COETZEE
18 Anton PEIKRISHVILI
19 Matthias ROLLAND
20 Jan De Bruin BORNMAN
21 Thomas SANCHOU
22 Seremaia BAIKEINUKU
23 Marc ANDREU

Very strong Saints team (the proverbial "cup final" team), but Chris Masoe and Scott "Red Card" Murray, I don't recodnise anyone in the XV. Surprised Kayser isn't starting.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Only saw about 15seconds of this in the pub, add that happened to be GFeraghtys shocking attempt at a kick at goal on the halftime mark
Can't remember seeing one so bad :lol:
Think everyone in the pub groaned when that happened (also - a pub full of Welsh people cheering on an English team: Who'd've thunk it )

Glad to hear that Saints won, though from the headline on the BBC news site, they didn't win very well/have a lot to work on

 

[Shaggy]

Saints might have been a bit lucky IMO ... Castres on the end of a couple of dodgy knock-on decisions at crucial times, and they seemed to have some ascendancy at scrum time too ... mind you, if Reihana had had his kicking boots ...

... not sure which Castres player it was, but one of them deserves an academy award for that dive he took (no penalty awarded thank goodness)

Edit: it was Diarra, the blind side flanker ... and he got man of the match!

 

[coonor]

A wins a win but this isn't exactly a mindblowing win. The problem with northampton is if their running and offloading game works they play brilliantly but if it doesn't they don't have much of a kicking back up and sometimes they just seem lost.

 

[Teh Mite]

No excuses, Saints were utter shite. 10 points need to be taken out of Cardiff now or they're in the Amlin.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

How was Geraghty in general play?
It's a shame he blows so hot and cold, because when he's on form he's such a quality player, but then can back it up with a....less than savoury performance

 

[Teh Mite]

He never had much chance to play as Sir was so happy with the new whistle Nigel Owens bought him as a 'gift', he wouldn't stop blowing it. The whole game was an endless precession of the "I'm the Tom Lacey show".

Shitty night out overall. I got on telly though.