ALEX DRIVES SAINTS HOME
Golf ban works for Mitchell
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 match against France last month and missed Premiership games against Bristol and Saracens.
He came on after 52 minutes against Munster with the scores at 14-14 but injected pace as two tries from replacement George Hendy won the game.
Saints will face the South African side the Bulls back at Franklin’s Gardens on Saturday night, with Mitchell odds-on to start now he has some minutes in his legs.
Phil Dowson, the Northampton director of rugby, 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 in training passing the ball and moving around and trained fully this week – clearly he contributed coming off the bench.”
Hendy got on the end of a sweeping move involving Mitchell, Tommy Freeman, Ollie Sleightholme and James Ramm to put Northampton 19-14 up.
With seven minutes remaining, Hendy, 21, who played with Bedford in the Championship last year, got through Simon Zebo and Ireland fly-half Jack Crowley to score a try he had no right to.
Dowson said: “The more he plays the better he will get – he made a huge contribution today. He is a freak of an athlete.”
Northampton beat Munster in the pool stages at Thomond Park and proved that was no fluke by repeating the trick against Graham Rowntree’s men.
Full-back Ramm, in for the injured George Furbank, opened the scoring from Burger Odendaal’s pass before the Irish hit Saints with a double whammy.
Munster wing Sean O’Brien went through Odendaal and Fraser Dingwall to score after 15 minutes and former Sale fullback Mike Haley picked from the base of a ruck and dived over.
Northampton hit back when in-form Freeman came off his wing to score under the posts to make it 14-14 at the break. Saints had all the possession and territory after half-time but could not get over the line before Hendy’s double dose of magic.
Munster have had a bug in the camp but skipper Tadhg Beirne said: “That is not the reason we lost. We went toe-to-toe with them and we’ll have to take it on the chin.”
NORTHAMPTON – Tries: Ramm, Freeman, Hendy (2). Cons: Smith (2).
MUNSTER – Tries: O’Brien, Haley. Cons: Crowley (2).