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'My barometer swung from frustration to anger': Chris Boyd unimpressed as Northampton slip to defeat against London Irish
By Online Editors
Northampton Saints director of rugby Chris Boyd was unhappy with a number of issues after his side missed the chance to go top of the Gallagher premiership following a 20-16 defeat against London Irish.
The Saints’ cause was not helped by the dismissal of second-rower Api Ratuniyarawa midway through the second half for a head high clear-out on London Irish prop Harry Elrington.
The Exiles played a limited game but deserved their victory as they outscored the hosts by three tries to one.
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Cobus Reinach scored Northampton’s try with James Grayson kicking three penalties and a conversion.
Ollie Hassell-Collins, Franco Van Der Merwe and Dave Porecki responded with tries for Irish with Stephen Myler adding a penalty and a conversion.
Boyd said: “My barometer swung from frustration to anger. I’m going to take some splinters and sit on the fence and say no comment as I have a strong opinion on the red and yellow cards that were issued in the match.
“A combination of lack of discipline, lack of skill and some poor decision making resulted in us losing the game."
Boyd was unable to pick his five England squad members for the game and chose to rest Wales international fly-half Dan Biggar ahead of next week’s Six Nations start.
Boyd said: “Consistency is obviously an issue and losing six players takes depth from our selection.
“We are dealing with a different group of players but tonight they were required to do a job and needed to be smarter.
“We’ve gone 19 weeks without a break and were desperately keen to finish January on a good note. However it wasn’t to be and we need to regroup and flush that performance out.”
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Yeah nar I pretty much agree with that sentiment, wasn't just about the lineout though.
Yeah, I think it's the future of SR, even TRC. Graham above just now posting about how good a night it was with a dbl header of ENGvSA and NZvFrance, and now I don't want to kick SA or Argentina out of TRC but it would be great if in this next of the woods 2 more top teams could come in to create more of these sort of nights (for rugby's appeal). Often Arg and SA and both travel here and you get those games but more often doesn't work out right.
Obviously a long way off but USA and Japan are the obvious two. First thing we need to do is get Eddie Jones kicked out of Japan so they can start improving again and then get a couple of US teams in SRP (even if one its just a US based and augmented Jaguares).
It will start off the whole conferences are crap debate again (which I will continue to argue vehemently against), but imagine a 6 team Pacific conference, Tokyo Sunwolves (drafted from Tokyo JRLO teams), Tokyo All Stars (made up of best remaining foreign players and overseas drafts), ALL Nihon (best of local non Tokyo based talent, inc China/Korea etc, with mainland Japan), a could of West Coast american franchises and perhaps a second self PI driven Hawai'i based team, or Jagaures. So I see a short NFL like 3 or 4 month comp as fitting best, maybe not even a full round, NZvAUSvPAC, all games taking place within a 6hr window. Model for NZ will definitely still require a competitive and funded NPC!
On the Crusaders, I liked last years ending with Grace on the bench (ovbiously form dependent but thats how it ended) and Lio-Willie at 8. I could have Blackadder trying to be a 7 but think balance will be used with him at 6 and Kellow as 7. Scott Barrett is an international 6 sized player. It is just NZ style/model that pushes him into the tight, I reckon he'd be a great loose player, and saders have Strange and Cahill as bigger players (plus that change could draw someone like Darry back). Same with Haig now, hes not grown yet but Barrett hight and been playing 6, now that the Highlanders have only chosen two locks he'll be playing lock, and that is going to change his growth trajectory massively, rather than seeing him grow like an International 6.
Go to commentsDan Carter is the leading points scorer and leading points per game person for a player with significant tests. 2s RWC winner and member of the games greatest ever team. It's not even close. The only question of GOAT for rugby is whether McCaw deserves it given Carter's numbers.
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