Thank God For That!!

England Shake Off Their Monkey
The 7-defeats-in-a-row streak is over, with a 23-21 win against South Africa. OK, it wasn't pretty. But a win's a win. Two players suffered injuries and were taken off - Charlie Hodgson was replaced by Andy Goode before half time, and Andy Sheridan suffered a leg injury, when Phil Vickery was brought on. With a couple of minutes to go, the prop scored his second, and probably most important, international try. Here's a photo from the England/SA game I attended in 2004:

Other International News
The Welsh steamrollered through Canada, winning 61-26 at the Milennium Stadium on Friday evening. I love the optimism of Ric Suggitt, Canada's Coach, who claims "We will beat Wales at the World Cup". OK...

Wales should head into their clash against the All Blacks next weekend with bags of confidence.

And Argentina made it two in a row with a 16-23 victory against Italy at the Stadio Flaminio. Quite a turnaround as the South Americans were trailing 9-3 at half time. Surely, this win (and last week's) proves that Argentina deserve a crack at bigger competitions - either the Six Nations or Tri-Nations. There's certainly debate to that effect at the BBC Sport Editor's blog. And I agree. Whilst there, I also stumbled across a really interesting piece about the role of the 4th TMO, especially with regards to Noon's try which was disallowed against New Zealand. Food for thought!

Sarries Win On The Road
Northampton were beaten 13-35 at home by a firing Saracens team.

The Men In Black scored five times. Glen Jackson landed all his conversions, Andy Farrell scored his first Premiership try, and Neil de Kock crossed the whitewash again for his third try in a month. This gives Sarries another bonus point which will hopefully see them rise up the table, if not this weekend, then it may well be a vital point later in the season.

I wasn't at the match, but here's a picture of Northampton's Carlos Spencer, playing in the rain-soaked game against Bath from September last year. See more images from that game at rugbypix.com

Other Premiership News
Sale played a real turkey at home on Friday night, losing 18-26 to Newcastle. Philippe Saint-Andre has apologised to the fans for such a poor performance:

"It's the worst performance at home since I've been here. We couldn't catch the ball, we couldn't pass the ball twice and we dropped the ball. It was terrible. We made too many mistakes."

Quins saw Worcester off 20-6 at home. Poor old Worcester have now lost 8 in a row, and are camped securely in the relegation zone. Quins know all about that, of course, as they spent last season in National Division 1.

A Muddy Affair

Hilly's Benefit game at Vicarage Road was pretty wet at times yesterday, and the World XV rather unwisely had a white kit, which very soon ended up sludge brown. You could spot the subs a mile off when they came on the pitch, we were nearly blinded by the Ariel Whites!

Bit of a pity Saracens XV trailed so far behind, but it was an entertaining game to watch, all the same. And lots of tries! Well done to Academy sub number 22 Richard Gill, who scored a try for Saracens a few minutes after coming on the pitch. He aslo made a very decent tackle on old stager Carlos Spencer, obviously a youth not afraid to get stuck into icons of the game. And just like seeing Captain Hugh Vyvyan dropping a goal a few months back, I also witnessed something I was never expecting - Saracens prop Ben Broster converting a try with a very decent hoof from the touchline - move over "Glenda" Jackson!

There were some great rugby names on both sides, notably David Flatman and Tony Diprose - former Sarries who returned to pull on the black jersey for the afternoon - and as well as King Carlos, the World XV boasted the likes of internationals Justin Marshall, Matt Burke, Joe Roff, Xavier Rush and Raphael Ibanez. They were captained by the inimitable Lawrence Dallaglio. You can see a bunch of the boys getting stuck into each other in the attached photo.