Ooo La La

The Saints have travelled to France for the week.  A rare opportunity to play in the Vaquerin Challenge.  Two matches in one week, first Castres and then Toulouse.  A young Saints side were blown away by a tough Castres team but a slightly more experienced team were able to take on Toulouse in incredible heat (around 42 degrees) and win with 5 tries to 3.  On the score sheet were James Craig and Noah Cato, both new signings for this year.  That the Saints initially went down by two tries in the first 20 minutes shows not only a great physical fitness but also a great level of self belief.

Saints 54 - Russia 19

Rugby season is almost back, and some friendlies are here to announce its arrival.  The first (and only home friendly) is against The Bears, themselves warming up for the World Cup.

A slightly strange match.  Saints fielded two different teams, one for each half.  Then the music system couldn't get passed the first three or four bars of the Russian National Anthem without breaking down.  After two attempts the Russian team decided to finish the anthem as an acoustic version!

Friendlies probably don't say much about the upcoming season and it is impossible to read too much into it when you only see a player for 40 minutes.  But a couple of the new signings took the opportunity to shine, with Samu Manoa and Cesar Sempere both scoring tries.  In fact Cesars try was probably the moment of the game, a beautiful blinding run that simply sliced open the Russian defence, and it was great to see how excited he was about going over.