Millward was in charge of Saints that night at Wilderspool, and as he says: "Don't forget that was the week before we were playing Bradford in the cup final at Twickenham, so it wasn't exactly our top priority.
Another example of lopsided numbers: the TV audience for Game 7 of the Cardinals-Rangers series drew two million fewer viewers than the N.F.L.'s Packers-Saints Thursday night opener last fall.
However, on the evidence of Saints' Saturday-night demolition of a Leeds team standing third in the table, he is needed far more urgently by his country than his club.
Come sunset, head for the seashell-studded bar for some chilled local rosé; if you can't face the Saint-Tropez night-crawling crowd, stay for dinner (try the fresh grilled sea bass, risotto, or veal piccata), served on the terrace to the tune of thrumming cicadas.
"Cassada" naturally brings to mind the best of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a writer to whom Mr. Salter has been compared before, especially the Saint-Exupery of "Night Flight" (in which we find the phrase, "We always act as if something had an even greater price than life," which is consistent with Mr. Salter's vision).
When I stepped out of my beachfront hotel in Saint-Malo the night I arrived, I noticed a distinct lack of beach.
Allen and about 100 men crossed the Saint Lawrence that night, but Brown and his men, who were to cross the river at Laprairie, did not.
Anyway, next month the Saints are staging a "night of unbelievable fun," sponsored by Minnesota Atheists.
In one of them, "Night Flight," Saint-Exupery describes the harrowing adventures of pilots who delivered the mail in South America and Europe in the early days of aviation, through the darkest nights and rainstorms.
In fact, I'm pretty certain Baby New Year is the patron saint of one-night stands.
