Northampton V Sale Friday 7.45

[twitchy]

Fantastic start from saints.

[Adam_P]

Shame for Robbie Smith to pick up a nasty looking injury on a rare start. That's the third nasty looking lower limb injury in the last week after Graham and Christie

[FKAS]

Shame for Robbie Smith to pick up a nasty looking injury on a rare start. That's the third nasty looking lower limb injury in the last week after Graham and Christie

Yeah not what you like to see. Hopefully it's not as bad as it looked.

Saints were scoring freely before the sin bin, this 10 mins could get ugly. Slightly harsh yellow that, definite block and had they looked more at the actions at James it did look a fairly deliberate block.

[Adam_P]

This is lovely

[twitchy]

Classy.

[Adam_P]

Not the game I was expecting so far. Great response after being far too passive against Tigers last week. Hopefully we keep our foot on the pedal in the second half.

[Mikey Brown]

Some pretty left-field selections from both sides. Sale really pretty out there. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union ... 71171#Sale

[FKAS]

Well that was a massacre. Sale did look short on ideas. Saints ruthless, the polar opposite of last weekend.

[Banquo]

Amazing turnaround

[Epaminondas Pules]

A few points I saw; AOF is ready. More than handled Iyogun. Langdon needs to wind his neck in. People rant about Earl for having mouth but Langdon is just an angry man who should focus more on playing than niggle. It’ll hold him back for sure. Pollock learned what 50 caps does in terms of experience, but still showed glimpses. Roebuck was poor. Freeman was not! Saints were 30 points up and still waited 70 mins before giving McParland game time which was a bit poor.

[FKAS]

Langdon needs to wind his neck in. People rant about Earl for having mouth but Langdon is just an angry man who should focus more on playing than niggle. It’ll hold him back for sure.

[quote/]

It wasn't Langdon it was Munga that made me laugh when he got told to "shut up and stop moaning" by Ridley. Just at the back of every breakdown chirping. Munga really does look a different player to last season.

[Which Tyler]

A few points I saw; AOF is ready. More than handled Iyogun.

Depending on your definition of "ready", of course. His bones still aren't intact - which has nothing to do with skill, technique, or even raw strength (which is actively unhelpful for this specifically).

[Epaminondas Pules]

A few points I saw; AOF is ready. More than handled Iyogun.

Depending on your definition of "ready", of course. His bones still aren't intact - which has nothing to do with skill, technique, or even raw strength (which is actively unhelpful for this specifically).

Ready in terms of technical ability. He still absolutely needs managing carefully in terms of load but he’s proving every week that he’s a not just able to cope against much more experienced opponents, but is a very good tighthead already.

[Puja]

A few points I saw; AOF is ready. More than handled Iyogun.

I thought it was more even than that - there were definitely a couple of occasions where Iyogun absolutely suckered AOF. One notable one in the first half where he let AOF drive before the strike, got him into an uncomfortable position and then drove underneath him to pop him up and out - was unlucky to be called a reset rather than a penalty.

It is very much a learning experience every game for him though, and I would be disappointed if he wasn't getting fucked over in the occasional scrum because that would mean he wasn't learning anything. There's no doubt that there's a lot of tricks that the highest quality of looseheads have, that he hasn't yet seen, so everything he encounters at this young age is only a win for his development.

Puja

[Danno]

Freeman looked unplayable at times, great performance from him

[Danno]

Also I really appreciate getting some analysis on the scrums @puja. I've never been in there and props just grunt at me so a bit of detail is great!

[Which Tyler]

Ready in terms of technical ability. He still absolutely needs managing carefully in terms of load but he’s proving every week that he’s a not just able to cope against much more experienced opponents, but is a very good tighthead already.

Absolutely, from my untrained front-row eye. As ever, it's the load that I'm worried about.

[Beasties]

Davison didn’t have a comfortable game on the other side, McIntyre was the winner there. AOF v Iyogun was more even by comparison.
Good to have a bit of prop crack though.