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| 21 January 2003, 4:23 pm |
| U21S Scrape Narrow Victory Against Worcester |
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NORTHAMPTON SAINTS U21s 29
WORCESTER U21S 26
Franklin's Gardens
Saturday, January 19, 2003
In a very tense game of two halves, the Saints U21s were just about victorious against Worcester U21s by 29-26.
Playing with the wind behind them in the first half, Saints scored following a driving maul in the eighth minute through debutant John Golding. Worcester came back strongly, putting Saints under pressure in their own 22, but a breakout by Paul Diggin, following good work by Chris Hyndman resulted in Will Snape going in under the posts to give Saints a 14-0 lead after 15 minutes, following two conversions by Ben Russell.
This was followed by a period of equal play until the 33rd minute when good work by the forward resulted in Matt Miles increasing the lead to 19-0, who was quickly followed by a Hyndman converted try to give Saints a 26-0 lead at half-time.
The second half started badly for Saints with Worcester scoring two quick tries, one converted, to bring them back to 26-12 after only 10 minutes. Saints were under constant pressure for the next 25 minutes with the opposition scoring another converted try to provide a score of 26-19 with five minutes to go. The U21s worked themselves into the opposition's 22 for the first time and were awarded with a penalty that was kicked by Russell. Worcester came back again and scored a fourth converted try in the last minute to give the final score-line of 29-26.
Dave Palethorpe, Academy assistant manager, said: "While it was good to get a win against another of the national academies, we will need a very significant improvement in individual and team performances if the players have ambitions of playing for the Saints."
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