He has always played a more all-round game for his club, but these days he is showing that important commodity which is critical to survival at the very top – adaptability. He may not be the man in possession, but these days has self-possession and poise He glows with confidence. No one is a clear favourite for the position.”Grayson, it has to be said, looked the part. Bath’s Mike Catt took over from Grayson but the Northampton man is relaxed about the situation and said: “Catty and I have been backwards and forwards in the England side, and we know how hard each other is working And there is also Alex King, of Wasps, to contend with. Even the setback of injury against Australia, which meant he missed the glorious win over South Africa a week later, has not disturbed his inner belief. True he had the quick-witted and ever- dangerous Dawson supplying him with a stream of useful possession, but even so that had to be used correctly and Grayson did just that.He has grown in confidence throughout this season.

But instead we let Grayson in for a pretty soft try and failed to take advantage of their being one man down and they then played well in the second half, well enough to deserve victory.”Grayson had not trained all week because of flu and his performance at No 10 was all the more remarkable. After scrum-half Matt Dawson’s tap to himself the England outside-half, Paul Grayson, carved out a gap between Rory Jenkins and Jason Leonard, and touched down close enough to the posts to make his subsequent conversion a formality.The psychological lift that score and two uncharacteristic penalty misses by Harlequins’ kicking machine, John Schuster – with 82 successful kicks at goal from 101 attempts this season and a total now of 247 points – before the half-time whistle, were enough to ensure a swing in fortunes.”That try was the defining moment of the game,” admitted John Gallagher, Harlequins’ director of rugby “We should have been a couple of scores up by half-time. Harlequins’ eight rumbled up and after a succession of shuddering scrums, the weakened Saints pack folded and Quins were awarded a penalty try. But the seven rallied magnificently, thundered back up field, won a penalty and some five phases. Jon Phillips, the Saints lock, was dispatched to the sin-bin for 10 minutes for raking Keith Wood. Northampton’s director of rugby, Ian McGeechan, eschewed the option of bringing on a replacement forward and taking off a back to ensure a full house up front; instead he gambled on the remaining forwards to dig deeper and make up for the temporary absence of Phillips.
It almost did not pay off.

IN THE end the seminal moment for Northampton came not so much with Pat Lam’s match-winning try four minutes from time (as important as that was), but rather in the 28th minute of a bruising Allied Dunbar Premiership encounter when Northampton were reduced to 14 men. Newcastle: Try Naylor; Penalties Wilkinson 2.Bath: M Perry; I Balshaw, K Maggs, J Guscott, A Adebayo; M Catt (I Evans, 71), S Hatley; D Hilton, M Regan (A Long, 72), V Ubogu, M Haag, S Borthwick, R Earnshaw, D Lyle, R Webster (capt).Newcastle: S Legg; J Naylor (T Underwood, 71), M Shaw, R Andrew (capt), V Tuigamala; J Wilkinson, G Armstrong; I Peel (S Best, h-t), R Nesdale, G Graham, D Weir, G Archer, R Arnold (P Walton, h-t), R Beattie, J Cartmell (S O’Neill, 64).Referee: E Morrison (Bristol).. “We were a different side.”Nevertheless, the line between victory and defeat, between a dressing- room that looks like a rave or a morgue, is finer than it has ever been.Bath: Try Catt; Conversion Catt; Penalties Catt 3. Apart from the odd isolated run by Inga Tuigamala or Jim Naylor, there was nothing convincing or confident about their back play and Andrew, as the playmaker, has to take responsibility.A week is a long time in rugby.

Bath conceded a 22-6 lead in the fourth round of the cup at Kingston Park before losing 25-22 to a last-minute penalty by Wilkinson.After that nightmare Andy Robinson, the Bath coach, said the dressing- room “looked like a morgue”.Robinson, who admitted that Bath’s disconcerting run of results had led to a “lack of trust and confidence between the players” (anathema to a club renowned for its brotherhood) was, understandably, in a much better frame of mind on Saturday “The confidence is coming back,” he said. Time was when Andrew could control a game, not only through immaculate kicking but also his ability to score tries or drop goals.Against Bath’s suffocating tackling Newcastle ran out of ideas. Andrew’s attempted chip – the execution was simply not sharp enough – was charged down by Catt who ran in unopposed from 40 yards.That was as big a setback to Newcastle as Ross Beattie losing the ball over the Bath line just before half-time but Andrew’s misery was compounded by his wretched kicking.In that department he was also outplayed by Catt, something that would have been unthinkable when Andrew was in his prime. Matt Perry, the England fullback, has been given his head by Bath although having said that there were worrying signs in this match that the 21-year-old has lost a lot of confidence.Bath, eliminated from the Tetley’s Bitter Cup by Newcastle last week, relished the physical contact that the Falcons always provide (the referee Ed Morrison was curiously tolerant of some heavy duty stamping and fighting by both sides) and defended superbly.Mike Catt, Andrew’s opposite number, also dogged it out, scoring all Bath’s points, their only try coming in the 11th minute.

He plays mother hen to Wilkinson, dominates the pecking order and calls the shots but they nearly all backfired against Bath.Andrew will be 36 next month and perhaps it is time the 19-year-old Wilkinson was entrusted with a weekend pass. “We didn’t play with enough pace,” Steve Bates, the Newcastle coach said, without naming any names.Although Jonny Wilkinson wears the No 10 jersey, Andrew is the de facto stand-off. This season, however, Newcastle have been unable to string together a decent run and on the evidence of their seventh defeat in the Premiership they can kiss the title goodbye.On Saturday, Andrew may as well have been at the Blaydon Races. There has been much speculation, most of it wild, about the future involvement of the patriarch Sir John Hall but of more immediate concern is the role of Andrew, the club’s director of rugby.
Since being recruited from Wasps, Andrew’s achievement, in winning promotion and then the Premiership title last season, has been outstanding. Nobody can outrun Old Father Time as Andrew painfully discovered to his, and Newcastle’s, cost at the Recreation Ground.