Former Hawks stand off Tommy Hayes will have no rest on News Years Day

Bristol Rugby Head Coach Richard Hill is able to name an unchanged team for the New Years Day trip to Northampton Saints in the GUINNESS Premiership.

That will come as no great surprise given the quality of the performance at home to Leicester Tigers in the same competition this week although there were slight injury concerns over Sam Cox (ankle) and Gareth Llewellyn (neck).

Bristol’s recent good luck with injuries continues however so it is a completely unchanged 22 for the crucial match at Franklins Gardens.

Richard acknowledged that Northampton will be going all out for victory to get 2006 off to a good start.

“Well, I watched Sale against Northampton over Christmas and it wasn’t the greatest of games but Boxing Day isn’t a great day to play.”

“I’m convinced that Northampton will have targeted this one against us. I don’t think they will have targeted Sale away. They will really pull out all the stops for this one. It’s a big game.”

“The confidence we’ve got from the Leicester game and the fact that we’ll pick from an unchanged team puts us in a good position to go there and gives us a chance to go at them.”

Northampton have lost their last five matches in the GUINNESS Premiership with their last victory in the competition being a 25-23 at home to London Irish on October 15th. At Franklins Gardens in 2005, the Saints’ record is won 9 and lost 5.

Bristol’s win over Leicester gives them back to back wins over the teams in 1st and 3rd place in the table. Their last visit to Northampton was on April 16th 2003 when the home team were 43-13 winners.

Bristol Rugby:

Bernardo Stortoni, Lee Robinson, Brian Lima, Sam Cox, David Lemi, Jason Strange, Shaun Perry, Dave Hilton, Mark Regan, Darren Crompton, Roy Winters, Gareth Llewellyn, Matt Salter (capt), Joe El Abd, Dan Ward-Smith

Replacements:

Mark Irish, Saul Nelson, Mariano Sambucetti, Geraint Lewis, Tommy Hayes, Rob Higgitt, Jake Rauluni

This article was originally posted on 30-Dec-2005, 13:22 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 30-Dec-2005, 13:23.