Moving Up, Moving Down

Floating Up The Table
Saracens kept up a good home record at the weekend by beating Leicester Tigers 22-16, in a fast, exciting game.

Sarries attacked right from kickoff and kept up the pressure throughout the game. Admittedly, the Tigers were without some of their regulary guys who away on international duties, but they still put up a good fight.

[right, Tom Varndell gets some unwelcome attention from Richard Haughton]

See more of my photos from this game at rugbypix.com. Sarries are now 6th in the Premiership table, the highest they have been placed since about this time last year. Let's hope they can remain bouyant!

That Sinking Feeling?
Heading the other way, there is much talk of Andy Robinson's position in light of the recent loss against Argentina. Seems he has a stay of execution until after the South Africa games are done. Messers Guscott & Healey would have him go now. They make some compelling arguments, in my view.

Let's face it, if the squad chosen for the first SA game doesn't deliver the goods, I reckon Robbo's in a pretty untenable position. And we haven't got much time to stop the rot before the World Cup now! The Sprinboks will be fired up after their defeat last weekend, and if England do go down, it would be there worst run of results, ever. Not a good thing to have on your coaching CV, Mr Robinson...

Tom Toms

Andy Robinson appears to have picked an exciting team to face Australia on Sunday. I really hope they can make an impression, it would be great to have more options come the World Cup.

The two Toms are on the wing - Voyce and Varndell - and both have bags of pace given enough room and the ball in hand. Just to prove a point, here's a photo of Mr Varndell scoring under the posts after just 28 seconds of the match between Leicester and Bath at Welford Road last season. He doesn't hang about!

Not rugby related, but I was browsing the silliness on the Halfbakery earlier, and two fab ideas stuck in the mind - first one was a suggestion to change the Eurovision Song Contest rules and make everyone sing in Esperanto. Genious! And the other one that caught my attention was the "I'm Not Crazy" sign for people talking on their bluetooth headsets on the phone. Some of the annotations to that one are priceless.