Super Saints march to top of the table
IT is amazing what an embarrassed rugby team can produce.
Northampton Saints, so abject in the first 40 minutes of the season against Saracens when they conceded seven tries at Twickenham and eventually capitulated to a 55-24 defeat, have produced a dramatic turnaround in fortunes.
With four wins since that horrid day they are top of the Aviva Premiership today.
It truly has been a mad start to the domestic season, with teams’ form flailing wildly between matches.
Northampton’s blip looks merely a speck in the rearview mirror now – and this victory over Harlequins at Franklin’s Gardens was pretty comfortable.
Quins are one of the league’s sides who are up one week and down the next. Defeat to London Irish in their opener at Twickenham was chastening, a win over Gloucester had them back on track and then beating Wasps away meant they dreamt of a lofty finish.
But consecutive defeats now to Leicester and Northampton see the Londoners nestled ninth in the table after five rounds.
Here they never looked likely to win – it did not help that they had a reported 23 players out injured including Joe Marler (rib), James Horwill, Chris Robshaw (both concussion), Demetri Catrakilis (broken throat bone) and Mike Brown (ankle).
All those, apart from Catrakilis, should be be back for Friday’s game against Sale.
With that list of casualties they probably did well to run this one so close, but in the end did not deserve a losing bonus point.
They could have taken one late on, but when Marcus Smith was lining up a penalty referee Luke Pearce was alerted that George Merrick had charged into a ruck with no arms, which he had, and the penalty was reversed.
Northampton took all five points. First George North – revitalised on the Northampton wing – bashed through Jack Clifford, Danny Care and Mark Lambert to score.
Then, after Aaron Morris had intercepted and crossed for Quins, Tom Collins and Mikey Haywood went over for scores.
The latter was a beauty – Ahsee Tuala made the initial break, offloaded from the floor to Teimana Harrison, he popped to Nic Groom who found Tuala again. Courtney Lawes then took the full-back’s pass and finally Haywood was on hand as the England second-row drew the final defender. It was lovely, and converted by Harry Mallinder to make up for his earlier miss.
Jamie Roberts scored for Quins right on half-time which, added to a Smith penalty, meant Northampton’s lead was only four points at the break.
After the interval Marland Yarde was left in no-man’s land by a Groom box-kick and Tuala sped onto it, evading a desperate Smith tackle to score. Mallinder missed the conversion but added a penalty and the Saints looked safe.
But Quins made them sweat, after an unsavoury incident involving Kyle Sinckler. Michael Paterson claimed a gouge, Sinckler denied it and the footage was inconclusive, but it will surely be reviewed closely by the citing commissioner today.
Dave Ward scored from close range and Smith converted to take the away side within five, but Stephen Myler’s final penalty meant the Saints marched to the top of the league, where they will stay until the next round of games at least.