IT’S THE HEND FOR REDS
George brace leaves bug-hit Munster sick
BY
ALEX MITCHELL came off the bench to inspire Northampton to their first Champions Cup quarter-final for four years after being told to stay off the golf course.
The scrum-half injured his wrist in England’s final Six Nations game against France last month and missed Premiership games with Bristol and Saracens.
He came on after 52 minutes with the game locked at 14-14 but injected pace as two tries from replacement George Hendy won the game against a Reds side who later revealed they had been affected by a bug that swept through their squad.
Saints will face South African side Bulls back at Franklin’s Gardens on Saturday with Mitchell odds-on to start now he has some minutes in his legs.
Northampton director of rugby Phil Dowson said: “He suffered the injury in France and we gave him that time off to get it settled, told him not to play any golf and it is pretty stable. It is strapped up but he felt pretty good.”
Hendy, 21, got on the end of a sweeping move involving Mitchell, Tommy Freeman, Ollie Sleightholme and James Ramm to put Northampton 19-14 up on the hour.
Then with seven minutes left the youngster got through Simon Zebo and Ireland fly-half Jack Crowley to score a try which he had no right to.
Munster captain Tadhg Beirne was among those affected by illness but the Ireland lock refused to use it to explain the defeat.
“People get sick, that’s part of life. You just get on with it,” Beirne said. “That happens in team environments where we’re scrumming down against each other and all that kind of stuff.
“Lads are going to pick up bugs but that’s not the reason we lost. We went out there, went toe-to-toe with Saints, they just got the upper hand. We’ll have to take that on the chin.
“It was a battle. You saw in the first half how tight it was and even in the second half, the game was on a knife edge for the majority of it. We go from having them in their 22 to all of a sudden they’re scoring. It’s moments like that we’ll look back on and be very frustrated with.
“But I can’t fault the lads’ effort. It was certainly a battle but we came out on the wrong side of it.”
Munster had scored two first-half tries through Sean O’brien and Mike Haley (left) to enter the break level at 14-14.
“We’re delighted. It’s the first time we’ve been in the knockout phase of Europe for quite some time,” Dowson added. “We knew the levels would go up, we knew the threat Munster posed and how hard they would come out of the blocks after what happened over there.
“We coped and managed to get our game on to the pitch in the second half. One of the things we’ve been blessed with is the competition in the squad.” NORTHAMPTON: Tries: Ramm, Freeman, Hendy (2); Cons: Smith (2)
MUNSTER: Tries: O’brien, Haley; Cons: Crowley (2)