Trailling 14-10 at the break with a man in the sin bin, it looked ominous for the visitors as they faced 40 minutes playing uphill and into the wind, but the pack set siege to Sheffield’s goal line and the pressure finally told, the hosts shipping a rash of penalties and 2 yellow cards and their depleted defences finally breached in the 65th minute. Forget the dropped bonus point, the Saxons had to dig very deep indeed just to come away with a ‘W’.

The Saxons starting lineup contained 4 changes from the Preston game, with Gary Dipple and Mike Hill slotting back in alongside Chris Depper who took the no.8 jersey and debutant Tim Douglas playing at inside centre. The bench included the welcome return of Tom Jarvis from a pre-season injury, while Depper’s promotion created another opportunity for Bobbie Lawrenson. Adam Sturdy provided the bench ballast.

Having won the toss the Saxons elected to play the opening half with both wind and slope in their favour, a decision that required them to come straight out of the blocks. That they didn’t resulted in a forward-oriented attritional game of catchup in which the outside backs were reduced to mostly spectator roles bar fielding the occasional Sheffield clearance kick.

Having penalised loosehead Mike Hill just 2 minutes previously for twisting in the scrum, referee Brendan McGaffney took exception to something that was said just a couple of minutes later (opinions vary as to what was actually said) as a scrum formed in the Saxons’ 22, giving Sheffield’s goalkicker Carrington a fairly straightforward knockover from in front of the posts. 10min 3-0.

The Saxons regained possession following the restart and Pete White looked to launch an attack down the narrow side, but disastrously his flat pass was well read and intercepted by Sheffield fullback Peter Swatkins who ran in for a try, the efforts of the pursuers rewarded as they forced him wide out to the left and Carrington’s difficult conversion kick flew wide. 13min 8-0.

It got worse shortly after when Mr McGaffney again took a dislike to the scrummaging technique of a bemused Mike Hill, enabling Carrington to land a second penalty. 19min 11-0. Having burnt half of their time with wind and slop advantage the Saxons needed to take the game by the scruff of the neck. They stopped coughing up soft penalties, forced their way into Sheffield’s 22 and were awarded an eminently kickable penalty that captain Robbie Hurrell had Pete White kick to the corner. A well executed catch & drive routine saw Chris Depper crash over wide right from the back of the driven maul. Jamie Hearn’s conversion attempt flew wide. 25min 11-5.

Sheffield fluffed the restart kick and it was their turn to be penalised at the subsequent scrum on halfway. White kicked for the corner again and the Saxons’ pack started to turn the screw, forcing 2 more kickable penalties in short sequence that were relentlessly kicked to the corner to set up attacking lineouts. Cue a replay of the catch and drive, Chris Depper again the man in possession as the maul trundled over, Hearn’s conversion attempt rebounded off the upright. 36min 11-10.

Another scrum offence by Hill resulted in Mr McGaffney brandishing a yellow card and the shorthanded Saxons were forced into defending their goal line as the clock ticked down. Sheffield were unable to penetrate however and finally resorted to a successful drop-goal attempt from Carrington. Halftime 14-10.

Playing against wind and slope, the best measure of the Saxon’s 2nd half domination is not so much the 0-7 points tally, rather the 10 to1 penalty count against Sheffield. 5 of those were conceded in the scrum where Adam Sturdy performed a job much akin to Jason Leonard’s in the 2003 World Cup final, relegating ‘Cheese’ Hill to an unusually protracted spell on the naughty chair. 7 of them I reckoned to be within the range of Hearn’s boot, but tries were the currency the Saxons sought.

One particularly promising driving maul in the Sheffield 22 was hauled down illegally in the 56th minute, earning a yellow card for Tigers’ no.8 Bradford. Dipple kicked the penalty to the corner but the drive was held up with the ball unplayable, the Saxons awarded a 5m scrum. Mr McGaffney must have been tempted to head for the uprights when it went down again while moving forward, but he chose not to award a penalty try and the Saxons opted to scrum again. They were subsequently to knock it on though, but Sheffield were unable to clear their lines and their scrum collapsed again shortly after, leaving Mr McGaffney little option than to yellow card Coates who had moved from flanker to hooker.

With just 13 defenders the Saxons smelt blood but their kick to the corner failed to generate a return when Sheffield turned over the throw. As the ball was kicked clear Robbie Hurrell went down in a lot of pain following what looks on video to be a very nasty off-the ball incident quite at odds with the general temper of the game, but none of the officials spotted it so the perpetrator went unpunished.

The Saxons regrouped though and won the lineout, launching a driving maul from which they launched a second wave of drives down the narrow side that finally saw tighthead Mark George driven over for the score. Hearn slotted a difficult conversion, 67min 14-17.

The game lost its shape a little with a rash of substitutions and handling errors, Sheffield got little traction in attack and continued to cough up penalties enabling the Saxons to keep play away from their 22. The final whistle sounded on what had been a dogged, if not a classic performance that ground out a deserved victory. Full time 14-17.

Coach Mike Umaga commented : ‘It was always going to be tough here, Sheffield had a lot to prove and we knew they wouldn’t just roll over, no way does their bottom of the table position reflect how dangerous they are as a side. Conditions were difficult and we could have been smarter in our approach to the game, particularly early on when we made plenty of mistakes, but belief was key out there, we showed a lot of courage to pull it back. The tight five put in a standout performance, none more so than my man of the match Nile Dacres’