Biggar the key man as Saints grab a vital win

WALES fly-half Dan Biggar was the driving force behind Northampton Saints powering over to claim their first Premiership home win of 2020.

Biggar scored 12 of his side’s points at Franklin’s Gardens in the deserved bonus-point 29-10 win over Worcester Warriors, which ended a run of 12 consecutive defeats for Chris Boyd’s team.

The Wales international scored a key try, set up another and nailed two conversions and a penalty, firing Saints to win at home for the first time since January. It was also their first win since August.

An Alex Mitchell crossing, set up by Biggar, and a penalty try for Saints led to Worcester trailing 17-7 at the break, and they proved unable to add to Billy Searle’s first-half try – with both Biggar and Mikey Haywood touching down for the home side.

The Warriors’ only points in the second half came from a Searle penalty after Biggar was sin-binned for being offside at the ruck after a threateninglooking opposition break.

At 64 minutes and soon after his 10-minute spell on the sidelines, Biggar sprinted in from close range to finish off his team’s efforts and bag a try – prompting jubilant celebratory scenes – before converting his own score.

It was actually Biggar’s first league appearance of the new season, after featuring in the Champions Cup defeat to Bordeaux-begles earlier this month and then missing the trip to Leinster, in which he steered the ship to a first league win of the new campaign at the sixth attempt.

The man of the match told BT Sport after the match the overriding emotion was relief after the win.

“I think we played some really good rugby in that first half and probably should have been a fair bit more ahead if we’re honest”, the former Osprey said.

“It’s been such a challenging year. Before lockdown, we were sort of dusting teams up and second in the league, qualifying for the quarter-finals of the Champions Cup and everything was sort of rosy.

“Then for whatever reason – we still can’t quite put our finger on it – we haven’t been able to come back the same team. Winning is a habit but losing becomes a bit of a habit as well.

“I’m just pleased for this young group, who deserve this victory, especially the forwards. They fronted up exceptionally well and it’s really nice to finish 2020 on a little bit of a high.”