Guinness Premiership Round-Up

Here's a run-down, game-by-game, of how the first week back after the holidays went in the Guinness Premiership.

Gloucester 24 Bath 19

Glaws got an important season off to a winning start with two tries from part of their ever-growing stable of young backs.  Jack Adams and Olly Morgan both crossed for the Cherry-and-Whites in an enthralling second half at Kingsholm, but Bath will take some heart from an impressive fightback that left the result in question until the final whistle.  Two tries from Danny Grewcock kept the pressure on and ensured a losing bonus point on Steve Meehan's first outing as Bath coach. 

Iain Balshaw managed only forty minutes on his Gloucester debut before an ankle injury saw him replaced by Adams, but the replacement's try and Dean Ryan's prognosis - that the injury is not serious - turned the negative into a shiny big positive.  A fine performance by Willie Walker on his debut will also have delighted the Kingsholm faithful, who still have the return of Ryan Lamb and James Simpson-Daniel to look forward to.

London Irish 20 Harlequins 19

With five minutes to go in the Premiership curtain-raiser, certain writers not a million miles from here were hitting up Amazon for recipe books on how to cook hats.  Quins kept alive hopes of an opening-day upset as prop Ceri Jones bulldozed over for a try with five minutes left.  The try was then converted by Adrian Jarvis, in the side ahead of former All Black Andrew Mehrtens, leaving the score 19-17 to promoted Quins.

However, no-one gives Riki Flutey two shots at goal to win a game and lives to tell the tale (NOTE: This is a journalistic device, a lot of teams have given Riki Flutey plenty of goes and stood laughing as he misses them).  Flutey's 80th-minute penalty sailed through the posts and gave Irish the win, leaving Quins with just the one point to reward their endeavour.

Saracens 19 Wasps 21

Close-run battles were the order of the day on this first weekend of Premiership action.  Anyone lucky enough to be at Twickenham for both games of the double-header saw two contests decided by a total of three points.  Dave Walder's fine performance with the boot showed why Wasps picked him up after his release from Newcastle.  Early tries from Erinle for Wasps and Johnston for Sarries had the sides level at 7-7 and mistakenly suggested a thrilling attacking match, more so when second-row Tom Palmer got on the end of a rolling maul late in the half, before a Glen Jackson penalty sent the sides in with Sarries 16-15 ahead.

Inclement weather put paid to such hopes, though, as the second half became a kicking contest.  Using the wind intelligently, Walder won on both a territorial and goal-kicking front, kicking the winning points on his debut.  A losing bonus point for Sarries, then, and they must hope to build on this encouraging first game to avoid last season's relegation battle.

Worcester 11 Bristol 41

Anyone who reckons they predicted this is a bare-faced liar.  Five tries from a club who went the whole of last season without a try-scoring bonus point?  Where did THAT come from?  Well, they came from Lee Robinson (2), Gareth Llewellyn, Shaun Perry and debutant wing Craig Morgan.  Last season's penalty-kicking leader Jason Strange got off to a promising start, hitting four to add to his two conversions.  Worcester have very few reasons to be cheerful after this opening-day home thumping - except maybe that they've got their freak result for the season out of the way.

Two penalties from Shane Drahm added to a try for lock Phil Murphy were Worcester's reply.  They will now travel to Newcastle hoping that they can start their season properly there.  Bristol will host Saracens with bags of confidence, though they might be facing Andy Farrell on his union debut.

Leicester 35 Sale 23

Revenge.  Twickenham.  Right, that's that out of the way, no mention of either word for the rest of the report.  Tigers got their campaign off to the perfect start, scoring four tries and keeping Sale from even gaining a losing bonus point.  Geordan Murphy, Louis Deacon, Martin Corry, and a late penalty try were the reward for a fine team performance, yet for some while it seemed as though the visitors would trouser the points, as Charlie Hodgson set about trying to win the match all by himself. His try, which he converted himself, added to three penalties and his conversion of Sebastien Bruno's try (the architect of which was ..... hmmm, difficult one) made for a personal tally of 18 points.

Leicester had numerous contenders for Man of the Match.  Officially it went to Martin Corry, who as a ball-carrier and captain had an enormous match.  However Geordan Murphy, Ben Kay, Scott Bemand or Martin Castrogiovanni would all have been deserving recipients. Sale will go back to the drawing board for next Saturday's televised clash with Northampton.

Northampton 25 Newcastle 23

If someone had told you that a Northampton-Newcastle game had been decided by a missed penalty that was easily kickable, you would surely as I do arrive at the conclusion that Newcastle had won, and that Bruce Reihana would be apologising to the luckless ball-boy concussed by his errant kick.  But that's not how the cookie crumbled on this opening weekend.  Jonny Wilkinson, starting a new season in the hope that he will play the majority of games this season, had an excellent personal performance, sadly spoiled by his miss at the death.

For Northampton, an excellent win was tempered with the news that outside-centre Jon Clarke will miss four months after an operation on the ankle fractured only half an hour into this game.  In that time he had looked like the potential England centre that pundits believe he is.