Summer Rolls On By

I'm not really sure where the summer went - I think most of it was rained off, to be honest. But summer, and August particularly, is usually pretty slow for rugby. There's the Middlesex Sevens at Twickenham (more of which anon), and towards the end of the month, clubs are to be found holding friendlies as pre-season fixtures. So it felt rather strange going to Twickenham last week for a test match - but that's what happens in Rugby World Cup years!

France Come Out Strong
Initially, I had high hopes for England's chances against the French - our pack seemed to be bossing things around nicely, despite veteran lock Fabien Pelous [right] managing to score in the corner within a few minutes of the opening whistle. The strength of their pack is always something to worry about with the likes of Pelous, Jerome Thion and Serge Betsen in their ranks - not to mention their front row.

England held their own for some time, with Olly Barkley slotting over four penalties with little trouble - some from quite long range. Jonny Wilkinson [left] sat out most of the match on the bench, for heaven's sake! I realised it was only the third time I'd actually photographed Jonny on the pitch - once playing for Newcastle (Dec. 2004), once for the Lions (May 2005) and lastly for 2 minutes at Twickenham! You can see more photos from the game at the usual place.

My heart sank yesterday, after watching England's display against France in Marseille on the telly. Their pack were definitely having their own way - so let's hope we can pull ourselves up by the bootstraps before the World Cup starts. Fingers crossed!

Back To Twickenham

It seems I'm beginning to live at the place - visiting two weekends running. This time it was for the aforementioned Middlesex Sevens tournament. What a contrast in the weather to a week ago! This time it was cold, drizzly and miserable, (the sun had been out in force the week before for the French visit). I really felt sorry for the players - thankfully my seat was well under cover in the West stand and I was still able to take a few photos of the matches.

After recent domination by the likes of Wasps and Gloucester, it was good to see the Final contested between Newcastle Falcons and Worcester Warriors - the Worcester boys were sporting a bright orange strip which added a bit of colour to the otherwise drab pictures. I wondered if they've just taken on new sponsorship from Lea & Perrins - the orange was exactly the same colour as the sauce label?!

[Newcastle's Ollie Phillips tries to catch Worcester's Marcel Garvey]

So, just a couple of weeks to go before World Cup Fever begins to grip the rugby-watching public - bring it on!

Faz To The Rescue?

Several links to peruse today...

Sarries field an unchanged team for the match against Worcester. Let's hope they can do as good a number on them as they did last weekend at Northampton.

Kevin Sorrell says Andy Farrell may be the England solution to the midfield problem. Whilst it might be jumping the gun a little bit, I have to acknowlege that:

• Sorrell knows what he's talking about
• Farrell has looked far more convincing (in the games I've seen him in) at 12 rather than 6.

[Farrell goes in for the kill during the match against Leicester a fortnight ago]

Anyway, Kiwi Zinzan Brooke says he would give Andy Robinson and Martin Corry the chop, if he was in charge at the RFU. The only problem is, who would replace them? There's no obvious candidate for either post at the moment, or I suspect they would have the job by now.

Let's wait to see what the weekend brings! Maybe Josh Lewsey is doing some up-front damage limitation by claiming that "people are naive if they expect us to rip the Boks apart". Well, Josh, we might not expect it, but it wouldn't half be nice if you did!

Glory Days

Do you realise what the date is? Remember what you were doing this time three years ago? Ah, glory days...

Now, we have to look forward to the weekend's games and dream about what it would be like if we were still ranked #1!

Andy Robinson's picked the team for Round 2 against the Springboks, and he expects great things of Andy Goode. We certainly need a solid contender for the Number 10 shirt, now that Charlie Hodgson has joined Jonny in the injury camp.

Sheridan's also got an extended time off with injury - so that's three Sale big hitters now on the sidelines - Scotland back rower Jason White also sustained a serious knock during the game against the Pacific Islands, and is out for at least nine months. Sale must be worried that this triple whammy could well hinder their Guinness Premiership title defence.

Indeed, Saracens are equal on points with Sale in the Premiership right now, hovering at number six. Sale are at five only by virtue of having won one more match than Sarries:

As you can see, Sarries are not short of point-scoring ability either - they have the biggest tally so far, and fly-half Glen Jackson is the top points scorer in the Premiership (for the second year running) - he's currently on 116 to Charlie Hodgson's 80, and poor old Charlie is unlikely to be scoring any more this season.

Bath and Worcester are struggling at the bottom of the table - Bath having only won two games out of 8 so far, and Worcester none. Something had to give - Worcester have just announced they've parted company with coach Anthony Eddy. More good news for Sarries, perhaps, as they are playing Worcester on Sunday at home. I'll be at the match and will post some photos as soon as I can.

Brizzle Top The Table

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.

Double The Fun

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.

Fijians Get Feisty

Five Fijian Internationals are in hot water for getting bladdered after a game and fighting with each other. Tut tut.


Thankfully, Sarries' two Fijian boys, Simon Raiwalui and Mosese Rauluni, were not involved. Here you can see Simon warming up with the other Saracens players before their game against Worcester Warriors in May 2005 (he's the big bloke in the front row with Kevin Yates, Thomas Castaignede, and Matt Cairns.

Gomars Gets The Elbow

I see that Worcester have ditched England scrum-half Andy Gomarsall after only one year of a three year contract. Seems a bit harsh - 32 and he's not considered good enough to even get on their bench!

He's now looking for a new club, wonder where he'll end up?

In the meantime, here's a photo I took of him from the Sarries/Worcester game of 26th March 2006.