| The 2001/02 season began poorly for director of rugby John Steele’s men with just three wins from the first 13 matches. Then in December, former All Blacks coach Wayne Smith arrived and Steele became operations director. Saints fortunes changed and they began to win matches to take them out of the relegation zone. In fact, having been predicted ninth place, they finished in fifth with a European qualification place, but did lose out in the inaugural Powergen Cup final to London Irish.
Ten players left at the end of the season and five new players arrived in the form of were former Wallaby Mark Connors, ex-All Black Bruce Reihana, the Premiership’s only Spaniard Oriol Ripol, Saints Academy product Simon Hepher and Wales lock Steve Williams. Saints were predicted a third place finish that year and they did exactly that to win an away draw against London Wasps in the inaugural Zurich Premiership semi-final. Saints could not beat the eventual winners to go to Twickenham, and neither could they beat Gloucester in their second Powergen Cup final in as many years. However, the upside of the 2002/03 season was the completion of the finest club stadium in England following 16 months of redevelopment work. The Tetley’s Stand, South Stand and Church’s Stand now form a horseshoe shaped stadium, which increased capacity to 12,200.
The 2003/04 season was doomed from the start when Sky Sports’ TV pundits Stuart Barnes and Dewi Morris predicted Saints would win the Premiership, but neither had reckoned on the resurgence of Bath under new coach John Connolly. The West Country club led the league throughout the season only to be pipped at the Twickenham final post by Heineken Cup champions London Wasps after they yet again beat Saints in the semi-final. However, all was not doom and gloom as third place guaranteed Saints its sixth consecutive Heineken Cup qualification spot ahead of a new era that was about to dawn at Franklin’s Gardens, and new favourite Bruce Reihana was showered with awards including the PRA’s Players’ Player of the Year, the Zurich Premiership Overseas Player of the Year and the Northampton Chronicle & Echo Player of the Year.
The 2003/04 season was also the season that enveloped Rugby World Cup 2003, which England won with a Jonny Wilkinson drop-goal. Five Saints players were involved in the competition and four came back with winners’ medals – Dawson, Grayson, and Academy products Steve Thompson and Ben Cohen.
Like Ian McGeechan before, Wayne Smith had been lured back to his mother country as the All Black blood in him could not refuse head coach Graham Henry’s offer. In his place for the 2004/05 season, former Springboks assistant coach Alan Solomons and his team of Frank Ponissi and Adrian Kennedy were installed. A whole host of new players also joined Saints following the departure of 21 first team squad and Academy players. Among the leavers were Saints greats Nick Beal, Matt Dawson, Jon Phillips and Budge Pountney – all loyal servants to the club. Among the new boys were the former Springbok trio Corne Krige, Robbie Kempson and Selborne Boome, as well as ex-Wasps and Bath wings John Rudd and Wylie Human. They were headed up by new head coach Alan Solomons until a disastrous run of eight league loses in a row led to his dismissal in November.
He was succeeded by a coaching partnership of Budge Pountney and Paul Grayson and together they managed to avoid relegation care of a few very close games and a missed penalty kick at The Stoop. Before the start of this season, Pountney was officially appointed as director of rugby and Grayson as head coach with the main aim of getting Saints back into the top flight European competition helped along the way by the key signing of former All Black Carlos Spencer.
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