Rugby Mad Blog

EDF Semi-Final 1 – Leicester Tigers vs London Wasps (34-24)

As a neutral watching the game, it was a very entertaining 80 minutes, with the lead changing hands several times, often against the run of play.

I had travelled to the Millennium Stadium with the Saraacens supporters. We had seats in the East stand, about 4 rows back. Good in theory, but pretty bad for the first 40 minutes on a sunny afternoon with the roof open – couldn’t see a thing with the sun straight in our eyes. Eventually it dipped below the stadium roof, and I was able to get some half-decent photos. Paul Sackey scored a great try in the first half, and the teams went in 13-12 at half time.

[Paul Sackey is enveloped by Andy Goode and Harry Ellis, looking sharp for the Leicester defence]

Things opened up a little in the second half, with the Tigers putting more points on the board than Wasps. Sackey managed another touchdown in the second half, along with team mate Danny Cipriani. Whilst for the Tigers, Seru Rabeni, Dan Hipkiss and Martin Castrogiovanni all crossed. No-one was more surprised than the Prop himself, when Castrogiovanni found himself in space, ball in hand and the line 20m away. He lumbered forward and no-one was at home to defend. He did the most exuberant belly-flop to get his try that I’ve ever witnessed. Didn’t realised Props bounce quite that well!

[Martin Castrogiovanni belly-flops his way to a try]

In the end, Leicester were the deserved winners, and will go into the final with confidence after that performance. See more match photos from the game.

The start of the Premiership season is always something to look forward to, and especially the London Double Header at Twickenham. I had tickets for the game but was forced to miss it because I had an accident on Thursday, bashing up my knee and breaking my elbow! Sadly, travelling to HQ wasn’t an option, so I had to forgo the fun this year. The accident has given me the excuse to put my feet up and watch lots of World Cup rugby on the telly, but I would much rather be fit to attend games and take photos. No picture-taking for at least a month, since my left arm is in a sling for 4 weeks and I can’t drive.

Quins Beat Up Irish
The first game was 7-try fest for fans of Harlequins and London Irish. Full match details here. Below, Quins’ Ollie Kohn and Hal Luscombe, and Irish’s David Paice all crossed the whitewash.

Sarries Outmuscle Wasps
The second match of the day saw Saracens beat Wasps by 29-19. The three try scorers for Sarries were Hugh Vyvyan, Adam Powell and Neil de Kock [below]

I was also looking forward to seeing Sarries play Gloucester next weekend, but I’ll have to make do with reading about it online instead.

For some time, I’ve been meaning to give my rugby photography site a bit of a fresh coat of paint. Plus, the way the site was put together was a little archaic, so I’ve taken the opportunity to do it the right way, adhering to Web Standards, which should make it faster to load, easier to use and generally more accessible to a wider range of readers. It should also work nicely on your mobile phone, if you have internets on it!

So, out with the old:

[outdated look and feel]

And in with the new!

[nice shiny new clothes]

On other notes, I see Danny Grewcock has lost his appeal against the six week ban he received for punching during the ECC Final. This rules him out of all the England RWC warmup games, and the first few fixtures of the tournament. Brian Ashton has said he can’t name a banned player in his 30-man squad, so Grewcock really has let another moment of madness ruin his chances at a last World Cup place for him.

I’m also pleased with the new format for the Anglo-Welsh Cup. To be honest, I was getting a bit sick of Saracens always having to play Wasps and London Irish in their group, seeing as we meet them regularly in the Premiership. So it will make a great change to be able to see Leeds, Bristol and Llanelli Scarlets this time round.

It seems ages since I’ve done a blog, so this will have to be a roundup of the last few weeks.

Saracens vs Glasgow Warriors, ECC Quarter Final, 1st April

[Simon Raiwauli is tackled by Dan Parks]

Sarries won 23-19 to take them trough to the ECC Semi-Final.

London Wasps vs Saracens, GP match, 8th April

The next match was away at the Adams Park stadium in High Wycombe, for a Guinness Premiership match against Wasps.

It was a fantastic sunny day, and there was a party atmosphere in the car park and plenty of ale was had by all. Sarries lost out 27-26, right at the death. [above, Richard Birkett, takes a lineout ball, with Tom Ryder trying to get a hand to hinder him]

Sarries vs Quins, GP match, 13th April

The next week, it was back at Vicarage Road for another Guinness Premiership game.

[Yatesy puts the ball up his jumper and goes for a trundle]

Sarries were on good form again, and won 33-19, putting them in a good position going into the final games of the season.

Saracens vs Bath Rugby, ECC Semi Final, 22nd April

[Danny Grewcock gets some unwanted attention from Kris Chesney]

It was a tough game, and Sarries just missed out, going down 30-31, and putting Bath through to the final with Cleremont-Auvergne.

Despite that disappointment, Sarries season ended on a high in 4th place of the Guiness Premiership, and putting them back into the Heineken Cup for next season – now the wrangling between the various factions has been ironed out!

I’ve had a stupidly busy few days, so haven’t been able to write much until now. Saracens beat Sale Sharks on Sunday at Watford, in the pouring rain.

Thanks to some nightmare traffic, I only arrived in time for the second half, which annoyed me somewhat. But I had a new lens to try out at the game, and was keen to give it a spin despite the rain:

[Mates in Mud, Mark Cueto and Glen Jackson pick themselves up after a roll on the turf]

The second half saw no tries (Adam Powell having scored the only one during the first half), but Jackson kicked several panalties over. The rain let up a bit, but of course, the pitch was sodden and the players soon ended up filthy – it was quite easy to play “Spot The Subsitute” when they came on from the bench:

[Spot The Subs, Sale bring on fresh legs and fresh shirts in the front row]

Sarries took the game 22-9 in the end, leaving them fifth in the table, one point behind Wasps, with a game in hand. Another home win, which must be good for team spirit. Next up is Newcastle away, then Bristol at home on 18th. You can also see more photos from the Sarries/Sale game.

And talking of Bristol, they were nilled at Wasps on Sunday too – final score 28-0. Bit worrying to see Phil Vickery suffering concussion thanks to a wayward haymaker swung by Jason Hobson – who’s already been suspended by Bristol for two weeks and faces an RFU disciplinary panel next week.

So where does that leave the current England Captain for the game against France? On the sidelines. The team will be lead by Mike Catt on Sunday, which is pretty much a crunch game for England. France have a few old faces back in their team, including The Seabass.

Richard Hill scored on his first Saracens game back from injury, in last night’s EDF Cup match against Wasps. It was apparently very wet, but Saracens won 26-15. And althought neither team could progress out of their group, it was still quite a good game, by all accounts. Thomas Castaignede was at Fly Half and got 16 poinst with the boot.

I didn’t attend that match, but here’s a photo [left] from the equivalent fixture last season, at Adams Park. On that occasion, Wasps ran out winners with 42-8. Now Saracens have to keep up their momentum for the next European Cup match, against GRAN Parma, on 10th December. I shall be attending that one, so will post some photos when I can.

Meanwhile, the debate over Robbo and his successor still rages. Johnno says he’s not keen on coaching right now. Mike Catt suggests Dean Richards would be a great choice. Calls have come for RFU Chief Exec Francis Baron’s head, but he’s having none of it. And the dirty laundry is beginning to be aired – former England defence coach Phil Larder tells us what he thinks of Andy Robinson’s decicion making.

Finally, tomorrow sees the last game of the Sprinboks’ autumn tour, against a World XV at Welford Road. Saracens provide four international players for the World XV – Cobus Visagie (South Africa), Fabio Ongaro (Italy), Thomas Castaignede (France) and Andy Farrell (Great Britain RL). Their captain is Lawrence Dallaglio. Let’s see how Faz performs in such esteemed company!

Newly-promoted Bristol surprised everybody (and themselves!) by beating Wasps at the weekend, to go top of the Guinness Premiership.

And there they will remain for a couple of weeks while the clubs have a fortnight of Anglo-Welsh Cup hiatus during the next two weekends.

Saracens, meanwhile, are floating in 9th place, (a familiar position from last season), after their loss to the Sharks on Friday evening.

They are away to London Irish this coming weekend, then host Cardiff Blues at Vicarage Road on 8th October. I plan to be at both matches, so there should be some new images on rugbypix.com in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, here’s a photo from Saracens’ home game against Bristol from last season, a bit of a muddy affair from memory.

Andy Gomarsall has also been on the move again, signing with Quins until the end of the season, after being unceremoniously dropped by Worcester, one year into a 3-year contract.

Here’s a photo of him at the 2005 Scrum In The Park England training session, with Sevens coach Mike Friday.

And I forgot to add them earlier, but a small selection of my photos from the London Double Header are now on Flickr.

The season kicked off in style on Saturday at Twickenham, with the London Double Header and 51,000+ fans shouting for their team. That’s one thing I love about Rugby – get the fans of say, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham and West Ham packed together all over a stadium, and there would be chaos. But the four Premiership London rugby clubs can enjoy a day out at HQ with friendly rivalry, banter, singing and some silly mascot challenges on the pitch, without a hint of aggro.

Anyway, on to the games. They were both close. Quins were unlucky to go down by one point to London Irish, 20-19. There seemed to be a lot of kicking going on in that game. The weather had threatened a downpour, but it didn’t actually rain much at all. Just very windy – maybe their game plan had been biased for the wet and they were surprised when it stayed dry!

That’s a taster for the game, you can see more from the Irish v Quins match on my dedicated rugby photography site.

As for Saracens vs Wasps, Sarries went down by 2 points in the end, after having lead by a point at the break. Another kicking-heavy game, but there were a few tries scored – sadly for me, too many by Wasps!

Saracens played some of our new boys, notably Argentinian Winger Tomas de Vedia and Italian Hooker Fabio Ongaro. Here’s a photo of our new-look Fabio Front Row:

There’s more from the Sarries vs Wasps match, plus loads of others, at rugbypix.com.

As for the other matches over the weekend, Bristol gave Worcester a walloping. Sarries are away at Bristol next weekend – eek! Newcastle went down to Northampton, and Bath lost to Gloucester. The positive out of that match was Danny Grewcock scoring two tries! He’s obviously raring to go this season, which is great news for Bath and England.

Sarries’ pack has a new coach, Kiwi Adrian Kennedy. He looks like quite a mild-mannered chap from the photo. But let’s hope he can turn the forwards into a steamrollering pack for the new season.
Here’s a picture of the lightly-steaming front row during their Powergen Cup game against Wasps last December. And Looks like the half-time pom-pom girls will get five more minutes to strut their stuff next season too, dear oh dear.

Great to see Sale achieving a place in the Guinness Premiership finals, with a win over Wasps at the weekend. They deserve to go all the way as they have clearly been doing very well this season, and finished 6 points ahead at the top of the table. Wasps will have to lick their wounds and regroup for next season.

And poor old London Irish got a drubbing at Welford Road, being beaten by the Tigers 40-8, Irish’s only points coming from Olivier Magne’s try and Mike Catt’s penalty.

And talking of Catty, he makes the trip down under as part of the Enlgand squad to tour Australia in June. Glad to see there’s life in the old dog yet (or Catt, in this case). Here’s a gratuitous picture of him to fill up the blog a bit.