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Richard Rae

Leicester Tigers 18 Harlequins 12

STAND-offs are born, not made, and Billy Twelvetrees will never really be a natural in the position.
What the Leicester Tigers’ 21-year-old can do in the absence of Toby Flood, however, is kick penalties from close to his own ten metre line, as he proved in still con­di­tions last night. With the wind behind him you can only think he must be dangerous from anywhere outside his own 22, and that Quins lost a match that, in terms of both pos­ses­sion and try-scoring chances made, they should have won, was largely down to Twelvetrees kicking six penalties from seven attempts.
Initially it had looked as though it would be Nick Evans, returning to the Quins’ side in place of Rory Clegg, whose boot would dominate. The former All-Black came into the match with a success rate of over 90%, and having seen his forwards force the Leicester scrum into retreat in the first minute of the match, non­cha­lantly put his side into the lead from the half-way line.
Matt Smith’s blatant trans­gres­sion close to his own line inevitably resulted in another three points for Evans, and a superb inside ball from Evans to Ollie Smith looked to have set up a certain try for the visitors, only for Smith’s scoring pass to Tom Williams to be ruled forward.
Leicester hit back strongly, a bul­lock­ing run by Manu Tuilagi down the left ending only when the giant young Samoan lost the ball in Mike Brown’s desperate tackle. Even so, Twelvetrees’ first penalty halved the deficit, before, incred­i­bly, Evans knocked on when Tom Guest, clean through with only Twelvetrees to beat, chose the pass to the New Zealander as the safest option.
Twelvetrees kicked a second penalty from almost the same position as the first, but lining up a third attempt from two metres inside his own half looked over-ambitious. It cleared the bar by a good two metres, and having suc­cess­fully explored his range, Twelvetrees landed another from a good 57 metres in the second half, shortly after slotting a somewhat easier effort.
On the balance of play a scoreline of 15–6 was close to ridicu­lous, but it became 18–6  from just inside the Quins’ half soon after­wards. Twelvetrees finally missed one soon after­wards, but Quins saw a Brown touchdown ruled out for yet another forward pass and Williams’ last minute try only served to emphasise their frustration.

Originally posted in The Independent

Saint Foden wins the day. Just.

Richard Rae at Franklin’s Gardens

A win in the Heineken Cup is not to be under­val­ued but victory was one of very few positives Northampton could take from a per­for­mance which put talk of them being among the favourites to win this com­pe­ti­tion in painful context.

Castres, aware they were in danger of being over­pow­ered up front, scrapped, spoiled and slowed the game down and, helped immea­sur­ably by Northampton missing five of their eight kicks at goal, were still very much in the game right to the final whistle. “It was a tough game, they played well, very phys­i­cally, and we didn’t play well, but we did win,” said the Northampton director of rugby, Jim Mallinder.

“You want to get on the front foot but out lineout didn’t function. We made a lot of breaks in the first half but we didn’t finish them and that and our poor goal-kicking kept the game tight. The goal-kicking was frustrating.”

Just as in Northampton’s opening Heineken Cup fixture last season, a memorable home victory against Munster, it did not take long for Courtney Lawes to make his presence felt. The manner in which the England lock brushed aside Daniel Saayman’s attempted tackle after five minutes suggested the Northampton pack should be the game’s dominant influence, an impres­sion confirmed when they destroyed the Castres scrum to win a penalty that Bruce Reihana pulled left. When he missed another, anxiety crept around the ground, with good cause.

Castres, on the rare occasions they had been in pos­ses­sion, had already shown their attack possessed a dangerous edge and they opened the scoring after some 25 minutes with a try that resulted from swift handling down the right involving Pierre Bernard and Ibrahim Diarra before Joe Tekori drove over from close range.

The atmos­phere was not improved when Reihana missed for a third time, this time from within the Castres 22, but five minutes before half-time the veteran New Zealander went some way towards redeeming himself with an angled run back to the blind side of a set scrum which wrong-footed the Castres defence to such an extent that no one laid a finger on him before he grounded the ball. Inevitably he missed the con­ver­sion and the Castres stand-off Cameron McIntyre showed him the way with a low but accurate drop goal to ensure the French club were still in the lead at half-time.

Whatever Mallinder said at half-time, within seconds of the restart Shane Geraghty’s darting blind-side run and Phil Dowson’s inside pass gave Ben Foden the chance to sprint in from 22 yards. It was in keeping with the game’s unpre­dictabil­ity that Geraghty converted from close to the touchline. Foden later left the field with an ankle injury that Mallinder suggested was no more than a sprain.

Those who hoped the burst of com­pe­tence presaged an improved second period for the home side were to be dis­ap­pointed, however. If anything it was Castres who found an attacking rhythm and Anton Peikrishvili was unfor­tu­nate when he was denied a try for a ques­tion­able knock-on after Foden spilled a high ball.

Geraghty’s suc­cess­ful penalty midway through the half was des­per­ately needed. With 10 minutes left, though,Bernard brought Castres back to within a point before Stephen Myler, a replace­ment, landed a penalty off the post to afford Saints a modicum of breathing space.

It was they who were attacking when the final whistle was blown, knowing only too well that bonus points, whether achieved in victory or defeat, matter in this competition.

Northampton Foden (Ansbro, 70); Ashton, Clarke, Downey, Reihana; Geraghty (Myler, 68), Dickson; Tonga’uiha, Hartley (capt), Mujati (Murray, 68), Lawes, Clark (Sorenson, 72), Dowson, Wood, Wilson.

Tries Reihana, Foden Conversion Geraghty Penalties Geraghty, Myler.

Castres Bernard; Martial (Andreu, 63), Garcia (Sanchou, 79), Cabannes (Bai, 49), Inigo; McIntyre, Tillous-Borde; Forestier (Coetzee, 68), Bonello (Kayser, 63), Saayman (Peikrishvili, 56), S Murray (Rolland, 70), Tekori, Diarra (Bornman, 72), Caballero (Kayser, 39–44), Masoe (capt).

Sin-bin Bonello 36.

Try Tekori Penalties Bernard 2 Drop goal McIntyre.

Referee J Lacey (Ireland)

Attendance 12,835.

Originally published in The Guardian