‘Top class’ Furbank makes the right plays for England recall

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Given the autumn internationals will be here before you know it, George Furbank started the season impressively for Northampton to put down an early marker for Eddie Jones, the England head coach.

The Saints full-back, last capped in the summer, scored Northampton’s first try and was heavily involved in two further scores in the bonus-point win.

“He’s one of those rare people who can see space early and change his plan late,” Chris Boyd, the Northampton director of rugby, said. “With our transition game, he reads defences well, and he’s a very capable player at 10 or 15. He’s top class.”

Northampton led 10-5 at halftime, with Gloucester having finished a well-worked back-line move through Ollie Thorley for their score, but, in truth, Saints should have been much further ahead, wasting multiple chances off the line-out short of Gloucester’s line.

“I think it was just overexuberance and frustration. We had about eight visits inside the 22 and came away with no points,” Boyd reflected. “We were impatient; tried to score off every phase. It was just rusty. We can’t expect to win games when we have that many 22 visits and don’t convert it into points.”

Except this time they did. Tries by James Grayson, Nick Auterac – set up on a plate by scrum-half Alex Mitchell – and Tom Wood saw Northampton home.

The debut of Juarno “Trokkie” Augustus also went down well, with the former World Rugby Under-20 Championship Player of the Tournament getting a warm reception and winning an important breakdown penalty in his second-half cameo.

“He’s a great player – he just has to get his work-rate up,” Boyd said of Augustus. “He needs to get his number of touches up, but he came on and had three strong carries, and an important turnover. Every ground has their cult heroes, and that’s a pretty good start for him. If he keeps going, he’ll be popular here.”

Gloucester, after a rough first half – conceding 13 penalties – scored twice in the second half through their maul, as Jordy Reid touched down and, later, through Jonny May in the corner. But they were always playing catch-up and their absences at lock – No 8 Ben Morgan was shuffled into a starting lock berth – hit them hard at the line-out.

“[The line-out] was a bit clunky but we didn’t come with a perfect pack by design,” head coach George Skivington said. “Andrew [Davidson] was the only lock out there, which is the way it is sometimes.”